Shes 7 Months Old Today!!!

Current mood: blissful

Thats right, Mia is now lucky number 7 months today! Hopefully this month will be filled with lucky things. This past month wasn't to shabby, infact she started racking up milestones left and right! My little girl is really growing up!

A big thing she started doing this past month was eating baby food. We started her off slowly, only feeding her stage 1 veggies. Carrots and sweet potatos were her favorite. She didn't care for peas much and hated string beans! Oh and she also likes squash. Soon after she got the hang of stage 1 she graduated to stage 2! and recently we noticed that, that is still not enough since she now eats a stage 1 fruit (usually pears since she didn't like applesauce or bananas) afterwards with a 4oz bottle of formula. So we might just be bumping her up to stage 3 soon. She also started eating rice cereal, though she prefered only the banana flavored kind. After that was gone, I couldn't find banana flavored rice cereal anymore and decided to try her on banana flavored oatmeal. She LOVES it! Its her offical favorite food since she loves it even more than her veggies now! Its too cute watching her attack the spoon when I feed her oatmeal. She even eats up to 8oz of it! I tasted it myself and I actually like it too. She also graduated to med. flow nipples... the slow flow were just not cutting it anymore. Oh and she ate her first real solids too, Graduates rice puffs. She didn't like them much though, once you put it her in her mouth she was shocked and didn't know what to do with it. She would eat them, but she had a hard time. I decided to hold off on those for a bit longer... till at least she gets some teeth! haha Anyways, her daily eating menu is...

8oz of banana oatmeal, and a 4-5oz bottle of formula for breakfast, stage 2 veggie and stage 1 fruit with 4oz of formula for lunch, stage 2 veggie for mid-evening snack, and a 8oz bottle of formula for dinner.

(I learned the hard way not to give her banana rice cereal before bed, last time I did that it perked her up so much she didn't go to bed until she burned it off playing.... two hours later!)

Anyways, phew what an eater she is, but she still hasn't packed on the baby weight yet. She went to her 6 month check up at her docs and he said shes healthy and not to worry. Granted shes above average in her height (95%) it makes her just a tad bit under the average for her weight but he doesn't seem to be concerned. She did get her shots but took them like the champ she is. She never got a adverse reaction and other than being slighty moody that day she was fine. She doesn't need to go back to the doctor for another 6 months YAY!

I have officially stopped breastfeeding. Though I really wanted to contiune, Mia didn't want to. It became to much of a battle to get her to eat and she drank less and less. So soon after she hit 6 months, I stopped. I still feel sad in a way but I will move on, I am excited that she is eating baby food now and that helps me get over the breastfeeding disappointment.

Her constipation is FINALLY under control YAY! She hasn't had problems with that in a long time now. It started clearing up once she started eating more veggies and definately after we introduced the oatmeal. Now shes a pooping machine! I don't mind all those rank diapers though, as long as my little one is happy and is not in any pain, I'd change 100000 of them. The only bad thing is, she now has developed the habbit of pooping during her sleep at night. I am not sure when it happens, but when I greet her in the morning she has a surprise for me waiting in her diaper! EW!

Another milestone is she used a sippy cup for the first time! Now when you give her a sippy cup you don't even need to show her what to do, she knows. She puts it in her mouth and drinks. Granted we aren't planning on retiring her bottle yet.. (at least not till she is at least a year old) we do give her a sippy cup now and then just to get her used to it so when we covert completely to it, it won't be so foregin to her.

Another milestone is she said her first word. "Mama" I was so proud of her and it surprised everyone. However, Mia is classic for learning something new, then moving on and she stops doing it. So she really doesn't say Mama as much anymore. She then started to say Wow-wow and Da-da then that stopped too! haha She will say it every now and then.

She also learned to shake her head "no" on command. It was too cute, then again.. it stopped and she won't do it anymore. Now she shakes her head "yes" on command! haha silly Mia. Its cute to see her bob her head though, and when music turns on either by the TV or her toys she "dances" to it by bobbing her head or rocking back and forth. I call it her little Mia dance!

Yet another milestone, is she can stay sitting up now! Once you place her on the ground she just sits there unassisted and can play for a long time. She can lean over and reach a toy then sit back up and play with it. She was slowly learning how to balance but as soon as she got the hang of it she learned to sit straight up quickly. Now she ALWAYS wants to sit up. She never likes being reclined anymore and because of that I had to retire her favorite blue toy chair. She would force herself to sit up by grabbing on to the over head bars then she would lean so much that she would almost topple over in it. She also started using the toddler side of her bathtub for her baths. It forces you to sit up instead of leaning back. She likes it better and she splashes like crazy and plays with all her little floating sea creatures. She even leans over in the bath and grabs a floating toy all by herself, and sits back up. She is really getting good at it.

Another thing she is getting good at is crawling. Infact I today she actually started moving forward using her hands AND legs the correct way!!! I was shocked! she still wont tuck her knees all the way under her tummy, but she does move them now in the right motion. Now she gets around everywhere! Thank goodness Auntie Lauren and Uncle Jimmy leant us Baby April's play yard aka "baby jail" so I can keep Mia in one area without worrying about her getting into the firewood, fireplace, DVDs, or TV cables. I just set it up today and I think she likes it! YAY!

She is a huge wiggle worm in bed now. I constantly check on her at night and always find her in a completely different position than before. She even started sleeping on her side now while she cuddles her blankey. Its really cute. She crawls all over her crib now and the only time she cries is when she gets stuck! haha She has really gotten the ability to turn on her tummy and back to her back by herself down pad. This is such a relief because before we were constantly flipping her back over. This wasn't much fun especially in the middle of the night.

Another new thing she does now, is she gives kissies on command! Adrian has been teaching her how to give kissies for a long while now but now she actually does it when you ask her too. She even gives kisses to her little butterly dolly! Sometimes you don't even need to ask her, she will automatically do it if she feels like it. Usually this happens when I get her up in the morning. Being kissed by her is the cutest thing in the world, granted it alittle messy with all that baby drool, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. It melts my heart every time.

This month also had a couple of new things happen. We celebrated her first Superbowl (which her team, the Steelers won!) and she got to witness her first presidential ignauration! To her, the superbowl was more fun haha.

Due to our financial situation we can't go out to eat as much as we used to, but we did manage to her, her out to her first real sit down resturant. We took her to Red Robin near the house, and she did awesome. It was noisey and really busy but that didn't stop her from bursting out into song or a scream now and then. It was really cute. She got a red balloon to play with and she went nuts with it.

She was getting seperation anxiety there for a but. If she saw you walk away she would burst out crying until you got back. Lately though, this seemed to have stopped... not sure what brought it on or took it away, but as for now she seems to do fine on her own, especially now that she can get around on her own better.

Her Grandparent's Pizano came down to visit one weekend too. They had not been down since late Oct. and were dying to visit again. They spent alot of quality time with Mia. She started sitting up really well during that visit and it was cool for them to see her do something for the first time while they were there. Speaking of family, we also took another trip to Oxnard. It was her baby cousin April's 2nd birthday so we went down for her big bash! Mia did awesome in the car and didn't fuss once. We never even had to pull over for her either way! On the way home she even slept 95% of the way and only woke up after we were only 10mins from the house! The party went great too! She got to play with her cousins again and meet some Pizano family members she has never met before. Including baby cousin Gia who is alittle over 2 weeks younger than Mia. They did well together until Mia got excited and decided to kick poor Gia and made her cry. Overall the visit to Oxnard was a blast. She really got to spend some quality time with her Auntie Lauren and Uncle Jimmy too which are always happy to see her.

She is getting so big too! She is now wearing 12-18 month clothes. The 12 fit her just right and the 18 give her alittle room. At night she wears 18 month jammies! Slow down Mia stop growing so fast! You still have to use your Xmas gift clothes alittle longer!

Summary:

Feedings: She is up to 8oz every feeding she doesn't eat something else with it. She is no longer breastfeeding. She is up to 2 stage 2 veggies a day, 1-2 stage 1 fruits, 8oz of oatmeal, and usually drinks 4-6oz of formula after each meal.

New Things: Eating baby foods, drinking from a sippy cup, eating her first solid, being able to stay sitting up when placed on the floor, using toddler side of the tub, her first words, "Mia dance", gives kisses on command, shakes her head yes and no on command, met Pizano relatives for the first time, sleeps on her side consistantly, can roll on her back to tummy by herself now consistantly, first Superbowl, first pres. ignauration, first balloon, eat oatmeal, and graduated to med. flow bottleWeight: about 16 lbs per bathroom scale

Goals met from last month? We have met EVERY goal we set from last month!! YAY! She does eat lots of baby food now, she can roll back to her back consistantly, she did eat at more resturants, she sits up longer and her constipation is better

Goals for next month: Have her crawl with her knees tucked under her, have her sit up on her own (she tries but can get it quite yet), learn to pull herself up on things, use sippy cup more, have her practice standing more (something she doesn't really care to do, she rather jump when you hold her up)