7 Months

Yesterday, Libby turned 7 months old. :-)

{13lbs 1oz, 26.25 inches long}

We had her GI follow-up in Indy on Wednesday.  The past couple of months (or so), I've been weighing Libby weekly at home and calling her weight in.  This has allowed the Doc to adjust her fortifier.  It's now up to 30 cals/oz, and we'll leave it at that until our next visit in April, unless she starts gaining weight too fast.  Her weight gain should be about 2/3oz per day.  I'm not sure if that's typical weight gain, or Libby's target weight gain. :-)  Libby did have a weight dip within this past month right before Christmas.  She caught that nasty stomach flu bug, and we had a hard time getting her to eat.  She has however, gotten back to her normal eating self again.  Thank goodness for that!  Back to the appointment:  it went well overall, and we'll go back in April to see about taking Libby off of Zantac.  Doc did not adjust her dosage in hopes that Libby will self-wean since her stomach-opening muscle is getting increasingly stronger the older she gets.

We got the go-ahead to start baby food!  Baby Led Weaning has been suggested to me by quite a few Moms.  This is something that I'm going to look into a bit more.  Honestly, I have this massive phobia of babies choking...Luke choked a LOT when he was learning to eat solids and I was quite traumatized by it (not gagging, actually turning red, then blue choking...it was awful!).  My thought process has been moosh, moosh, moosh, and cut up food into tiny pieces smaller than the size of a pea.  So, it's going to take a bit to get me out of that mindset, but I think that this will be a good option for us.  

Yesterday, I did give Libby some Oatmeal with a spoon just to see how she'd do.  The pictures speak for themselves. :-)

  

Libby is holding her own bottle, and she gets very excited about our food when we eat. :-)  Later this week, I'm going to try some avocado with her and see how she does.

Speaking of eating, remember that tooth that had popped through?  Well, it went back down!  How is that even possible?  I've never had it happen with the boys before, but I guess it does happen, because it did.  Her gums are still pretty swollen, and I think it's only a matter of time before a tooth finally sprouts.

Libby has become very aware of her surroundings...not that she wasn't before, but she absolutely loves to be in the company of everyone else.  Our house is pretty open...you can see the kitchen from the living room, the living room from the office or bedroom, etc.  Sometimes she'll be in her exersaucer and I'll run into the kitchen to fetch something.  She HATES that!  She has started fake coughing as a means to get attention...it's pretty cute. :-)

Sitting unassisted, taking steps while holding onto our fingers, rolling side-to-side, taking her paci from me and putting it into her own mouth, and talking up a storm are all milestones that she's perfected this month. :-)

{I love to look at myself in the mirror!}

I think I've mentioned before, but Libby has a double crown.  Her hair is coming in a lot more, so the hair between the crowns is growing.  It sticks straight up!  Baby girl is gonna have some voluminous hair. :-)

Some of Libby's quirks:

• She loves hands...her own or others', it doesn't matter.  She'll study them, play with them, eat them...it's so cute!
• Snuggly baby, for sure.  When she's tired, she'll snuggle right into the curve of my neck and scratch at the back of my arm with one hand and my chest with the other.
• Libby sings when she's tired, just like Luke used to do. :-)
• Still not a fan of the carseat, she hates even more the carseat cover we use to keep her warm.  Little lady loves to see what's going on around her!

Lastly, I've been meaning to type this up just to have it recorded.  When Libby was first born, I noticed in the hospital that when I nursed her, the side of her face that was down was red and the side that was up (closest to my face) was white.  It appeared that someone drew a line right down the middle of her face.  It shocked me, so of course I brought it up to the attending Pedi.  She said to open up her onesie and see if this phenomenon appeared all the way down Libby's body, and sure enough, it did!  One half of her body was white, and one half was red.  Libby has/had Harlequin Syndrome.  It is completely benign and nothing to worry about, but quite interesting to see.  If you google it, there are several other syndromes that share a similar name that are pretty scary, so don't google. :-)  It's pretty rare, so several of the Nurses were excited to see what it looked like...they had heard of it, but had never seen it.  I thought when she was about 2 months old, it had gone away.  I hadn't noticed the color change happen, and I knew her circulatory system would mature and she would grow out of it.  The other day, though, B was holding her and I noticed she had one white foot and one red foot.

It's kind of hard to see in the picture because of the lighting, but the one on the left is white, and the one on the right is red (appears pink).

This next month brings Libby's first Valentine's Day.  I'm sure there will be many more "firsts", too.  I'm looking forward to finding out what those "firsts" are!  In the meantime, day-by-day we're enjoying our sweet girl and her cheerful personality.

Happy, Happy 7 Months, sweet Libby!