Seven months

It has been a busy month for Laurel. Looking back at last month's list of things she couldn't yet do, I can report that now she sits very steadily, she sleeps through the night about half the time, she eats solid foods, she has moved into her own crib in her own room, and she is beginning to babble.

Well, she babbled for a few days, but she now seems to be taking a break. (Same thing happened with the rolling over, you may recall: she did it for a few days back in June, but not since then.) Laurel began with "ga-ga," just like a stereotypical baby. She also says "ha" and something that sounds like "hi." But more recently she has chosen to shriek to express herself. She has always been a calm and quiet baby, but now she'll scream piercingly, especially when a desired (and usually forbidden) object is removed from her grasp.

Yes, she's become a grabber. Holding her on my lap while I sit at the table and eat has become a challenge: she wants to grab the napkin, the plate, the food. She likes to pick up stuff, the less toy-like the better, and then she likes to stick it in her mouth. She pulls hair, which isn't so nice, but she also wraps her arms around me in a rudimentary hug, which is wonderful. In general she is very handy with her hands. When she gets ahold of an item she doesn't drop it unless, of course, she wants to drop it -- then she holds it at arm's length and deliberately lets it go.

As I previously noted, her good sleeping resumed after we stopped swaddling her -- because then she could get to her thumb. She likes all her fingers, but she loves her thumb. When she gets sleepy her lower eyelids turn pink and she pops her thumb in her mouth. If her sleep is interrupted, like if she awakens when I set her down, she often finds her thumb and puts herself right back to sleep. We can sometimes hear her sucking her thumb through the baby monitor, so she puts herself back to sleep at other times as well. It is a miracle.*

Laurel keeps getting bigger, and so she has graduated to what they call a "convertible" car seat, meaning one that can eventually be turned to face forward when she gets big enough. At her last doctor's appointment she measured 26 and a half inches, just slightly too tall for the infant car seat with the bucket-style handle. So she moved into Isaac's old Britax Boulevard, which we installed rear-facing, and we bought a Britax Frontier for Isaac, which will eventually convert to a booster seat. Oh, the poor second child with the hand-me-downs, while the eldest child gets the shiny new stuff.

So Laurel is accomplishing a lot, but at seven months old she hasn't done everything yet: she still has no teeth, and as she still hates tummy time with the heat of a thousand suns, it shouldn't be surprising that she has shown no interest in crawling. That's okay. I haven't gotten around to childproofing yet.

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* If I can hijack Laurel's birthday post to compare her to Isaac, to me this is the biggest practical difference between them: she isn't offended at the mere suggestion of sleep. When Laurel wakes up and finds herself alone in her crib, she doesn't mind. In fact, she often doesn't make any noise, so even with the baby monitor it can take a while for me to notice she's awake. On the other hand, I always knew as soon as Isaac woke up. It was like he thought, "Oh no, I've been sleeping! I never agreed to this outrage! Come here right now!" Then he cried furiously.

Laurel doesn't mind going to bed. On occasion I set her down awake, but more often I set her down after I've nursed her to sleep; sometimes she wakes up and looks at me, but she doesn't protest, and then she falls back asleep on her own. Isaac was the exact opposite of those dolls with eyes that open and close -- as soon as his sleeping self got horizontal and touched the mattress, his eyes popped wide open. Then he cried furiously. Even as a tiny baby Isaac fought sleep instead of embracing it. He never, ever fell asleep on his own.

But you know what? Isaac falls asleep by himself now. Since mid-May, when he was three years and eight months old, we have been able to tell him good night and leave the room and he falls asleep alone. I never thought it would happen.