Apr
12
2010
The girlies are 7 months today. And I’m actually writing this post on their birthday instead of scheduling in advance: I was totally unprepared for this milestone! It was a kind of crazy day: either we wore the girls out yesterday, or they’re having a growth spurt, or they’re fighting off a cold; because they have only been awake for a grand total of 6 hours all day. Poor things! So please excuse their grumpy looking 7 month photos. It was the best they would allow :-p
Aeralind Grace
My sweet girl, you have spent you entire 7th month on your stomach. You learned to roll over back to tummy at the end of your sixth month and mommy has refused to roll you back every time you rolled. Therefore, you have become very strong! In fact, you are starting to be able to put your legs underneath you, although you have not managed to pick up your entire tummy for more than a few seconds. You have learned to scoot backward semi-unintentionally and sometimes when we leave the room we’ll come back and you’ll be 3-4 feet from where we left you. You can also put one of your feet against the ground and push forward to grasp the item of your desire. You rotated 90 degrees on your tummy and propelled yourself about a foot forward to steal my spoon out of my cereal bowl!
Aeralind, you are so visual it’s almost frightening! At your 6 month appointment, you rolled over onto you tummy on the examining table and then positioned yourself so that you could watch the TV through the mirror. We we go out to the library or to a store or restaurant, I call you the intimidator. You will sit there and stare at everything with a deep look of concentration on your face as you try to figure things out. You actually almost look like you’re scowling. It cracks me up!
Your favorite foods thus far are peas and very cold pears, though you are particularly fond of oatmeal too. You hate mango and do not really care for plums either. You yell at me or coo the entire time I am feeding you solids because I take too long to feed your sister a bite before coming back to you. You love to stuff your hand or thumb or bib in your mouth while I’m feeding you and that can be somewhat frustrating 😉
Yesterday, your daddy had you giggling so hard. He was bouncing you on his knees and singing you some silly song. Normally your laugh sounds like you’re wheezing but yesterday you were shrieking with glee.
Bronwyn Hope
My snuggly girl, you are thisclose to sitting unassisted. You love being upright. You are so happy to be left in your exersaucer or in your booster chair with toys on the tray. You will squeal and talk to everyone who walks by.
While your sister has spent the month rolling on her tummy (and you have spent the month pretending you didn’t know how though you do), you have spent the month mastering the manipulation of objects. You can grab anything left in front of you for mere seconds. In fact more than once, I’ve sat the food bowl on your booster tray to pull your sister’s hand out of her mouth and turned to see you grab it and stuff the whole bowl in your mouth. You’re also extremely proficient at stealing toys right out of your sister’s hands. You’re also starting to use a modified pincher grip to grab thinner items; you use your thumb and middle finger rather than your forefinger.
You don’t really have a favorite food. You’ll eat anything rather eagerly. However, you’re just a little unnerved by the taste of turkey when it’s not mixed with a veggie. You don’t nose dive for the spoon like your sister, but you politely open your mouth and ‘chew’ your food thoughtfully. At some meals you demand holding your own spoon; if you could just manage to hold it upright I could probably let you feed yourself 😉
Bronwyn, you love to the be the center of attention. When we go to the library for Bouncing Babies, you shriek with laughter and excitement whenever “Mrs. Perky Duck” greets you. It cracks you up! Just about every time someone talks to you, they are met with eager smiles. In fact, last night you sat for hours on 13 year old Jacob’s lap just flirting and smiling and rubbing his cheeks. I think you thought you’d died and gone to heaven 😉
Precious little girls, we are so blessed to call you our daughters.
Apr
01
2010
Aeralind in pink and Bronwyn in yellow. They might just be enjoying spring as much as I am 😉
Mar
11
2010
6 Months is such a big milestone. My little girls are suddenly evolving from helpless babies to little people with distinct personalities and preferences. I love watching them grow and discover their environment, but at the same time it’s bittersweet as the time is just flying by!
Each day the girls are starting to notice one another more. Sometimes they lay facing one another and chatting back and forth. Other times the pass a toy back and forth for awhile (ok it’s really stealing but I’ll call it passing…). The pat each other on the face and grab the others’ hand or ear. Sometimes they pass a smile back and forth like it’s contagious. I love that the fact that I will never have an only child!
Aeralind Grace
Aeralind is so laid back! She loves to study her environment meticulously. When she’s concentrating, Aeralind loves to play with her tongue. It cracks me up! When I lay her in the crib for a nap, she grabs her blanket, pops her thumb in her mouth, and settles in to sleep.
Aeralind loves to roll back to tummy. She’s even managed to roll back to tummy to back to tummy to back to tummy once and ended up 3 feet from where I left her! However most of the time, she forgets how to roll onto her back and when she’s tired of her tummy, she will whine until some one rolls her back.
Because of all her self-imposed tummy time, Aeralind is getting really close to crawling. She can lift most of her weight on her hands and knees and rocks forward on occasion. It’s only a month or two before that girl is mobile!
I have the hardest time getting this little girl to crack a smile. She stares at all my foolishness as if to say, “I’m not impressed, Momma.” Then Daddy comes home and it’s like she becomes the Cheshire Cat. So not fair.
Bronwyn Hope
Bronwyn is pretty high maintenance right now. She wants to be up and about, grabbing toys and talking to you. When I lay her in the crib for a nap, I also have to hand her a little red ring to play with and if she focuses on the object I can disappear without a scream; otherwise, she’ll scream and pull her blanket up over her head while stomping her little feet down on the mattress.
Bronwyn loves to grab and manipulate objects. She can pass an object from hand to hand. She can rotate objects. She can grab things from above her, on her chest, and next to her body. She can shake objects around and she can place most objects in her mouth effortlessly.
Bronwyn loves solid food! I started feeding them daily last week. At first she just loved that time because she loves being in the Bumbo and being the center of my attention. But last Friday when she was eating a sweet potato/avocado mixture, eating finally clicked for her! It was magical as she started opening her mouth to accept the spoon and even reaching for the spoon to attempt self feeding. Tuesday when I gave her apples for the first time, she would have happily eaten the entire portion by herself!
Because Bronwyn is a child who feels emotions so deeply, she is very easy to get to smile. But the flip side is that it also is just as easy to get real tears from her.
Feb
11
2010
Sometime last month marked the day where Derek and I came together to create a little person and where a God who knows what we needed more than anything knitted that little person into two beautiful girls. I can’t believe it has been a year. A year of anticipation and sleeplessness and lessons on our selfish natures and laughter at the antics of two sweet girls. They’ve officially been out here in the world for 5 months today; I can scarcely believe it!
Let me confess that the girls current stage makes me consider doing it all over again. They are getting to be so much FUN! They laugh, they play with their hands and toys, the smile, they talk, and on occasion they roll over. When they’re tired they just curl right up over your shoulder and snuggle in. This sweetness is practically contagious.
Aeralind Grace
This little girl is so focused on whatever she is doing. I can hardly snap a photo without capturing intense concentration. She’s taken to thumping her little legs down as hard as she can at every chance she gets, but especially when she’s trying to keep herself awake. Eventually, she’ll cover her face with one hand and suck on her thumb until she falls asleep.
Aeralind rolled over from tummy to back for the first time on February 1st. I was out of the room fixing lunch and when I returned she was lying innocently on her back. She repeated her feat when I left the room to get my drink. I actually caught her rolling from tummy to back 3 times in a row two days ago. She’s pretty good at it, but sometimes her little brain just can’t remember the correct sequence of movements. When that happens, she lays down her head and complains loudly.
Aeralind can be a clown when I least want her to be a clown. She’ll start grinning at me while nursing in the middle of the night. When she’s tired she’ll gladly sit there and coo and laugh and grin at me until she almost convinces me that she’d rather not sleep.
Aeralind felt pretty yucky the earlier this week (I accidentally had dairy at a Super Bowl party) and she acts just like her Daddy when she’s doesn’t feel well. She just wanted to be held and have her head stroked and talked to in a gentle voice.
Bronwyn Hope
Bronwyn is movement caged. This little girl rarely stops moving! She can rotate herself 360 degrees while lying on her back and can do it so fast she gives the back of her head carpet burn. She loves to roll up on her side and play with her hands or more recently the hanging toys. The concentration she puts forth when trying to grab a toy I dangle above her is intense; I can see how proud she is to be able to grasp successfully.
Bronwyn rolled over tummy to back twice on January 23. I saw the first roll and her daddy got to see the second one. Since then she’s decided that she’d much rather play with her hands or whatever toy you hand to her. In fact, on tummy time now she just lays her little head down and stuffs her whole hand in her mouth.
Bronwyn hates to go to sleep for a nap. She will whine because she’s tired and then scream when you lay her in the crib. She also wakes up earlier than her sister consistently. I think she just likes having the extra attention. 😉
Bronwyn is in love with the borrowed Bumbo seat despite the fact that putting her in it almost instantly results in copious amounts of spit up. She is happy to sit on daddy’s desk and watch him on the computer. She loves sitting on our kitchen table watching me cook dinner or enjoying dinner with the two of us. She’ll smile and join right in with chatter.
