7-month update

I'm in disbelief that Adele is 7 months old and the end of 2008 is upon us. Where did the year go?? Adele is growing and learning and doing like crazy these days, seems like I've neglected to tell you about it.

First, the stats from her appointment last Friday:
Weight: 15 pounds, 12 ounces (25% actual age/90% adjusted)
Length: 25 3/4 inches (25%/95%)

Things she's doing:

• Attempting to hold her bottle during feedings. She doesn't always do it very well or for very long, but she tries. It's especially cute to see her get excited when she sees it and grab it and cram it into her mouth. That's my girl!
• Passing toys one from hand to the other
• Playing with her feet. This is BEYOND cute, except at diaper changing times, and then it's just sort of cute, and mildly frustrating.
• Laughing--a lot. She likes it when you "gobble" her belly, but I don't know if it's the sensation on her belly that's amusing or your hair tickling her face. We don't care--we just like making her laugh.
• Rolling over a little. If she's on her tummy, she can get on her back after a while. She usually squirms her legs under her stomach and gets on her side that way or if she's propped up on her elbows, she'll lay down on one arm and let gravity do the rest of the work. Still not rolling from back to front, but she does kick her feet up to grab them and then uses that as leverage to get onto her side.
  
• She's very squirmy at night, we've learned, since whenever we go get her in the morning she's never in the same place/position we left her in the night before. I've found her with her head wedged into the corner of the crib, up against the short side of the crib, with her back against the short side of the crib, flipped over on her back all the way against the side of the crib (she's a tummy sleeper, yes I'm aware of SIDS, thankyouverymuch, but on her tummy is the only way she'll sleep for any extended period of time) and the best one yet, on her back with her feet sticking out between the rails of the crib. Zoinks!
  
• We're using the Bumbo a bit more nowadays, trying to get her muscles worked up for sitting up on her own. She still gets a bit slumpy after a while, but she's getting better.
• She enjoys standing up, and can bear all her weight on her own for a quite a while. All she requires from us is a bit of support for balance. She's doing all the hard work herself.
  
• She's eating a lot better, and is back up to where she was before her hunger strike. She even finished a full bottle at daycare the other day--that was a first!

Dr. Murphy said her fine motor skills and social development are all in line with a 6-month-old. Her gross motor are more in line with her adjusted age, which is fine. No cause for concern at all. We'll just continue to work on tummy time and those things that will help in that area and she'll catch up in no time. Overall it was a great appointment and Dr. Murphy said she was extremely pleased with how well Adele is doing. Yay! It seems to me that over the past month or so, she went from being a "passive" infant to a more interactive, playful person. She's so much fun, and it's so interesting to me to see her learn. I love watching her as she's trying to figure something out or as she's working SO hard to get to something or flip over or whatever the task. I wonder what she's thinking sometimes! Oh, we were given the go-ahead to give Adele cereal if we want. I have spoons, I have cereal, I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Part of me wants to try it, the other part wants to wait a few more months, maybe until she's 5 months adjusted. No sense in rushing into it, right? Also, we might try taking her off Prevacid for her reflux to see how she does. Since she rarely spits up these days (knock wood) and because the medicine is super expensive and a pain to get, it would be fantastic if we could drop it altogether. So we'll give that a shot next week and see how it goes.

I owe you lots of photos, so without further ado...(ignore the date on most of these--my camera got messed up and I didn't realize it.)

Feet are fun!

In November, we went to Kansas City to visit Adele's NICU podmate, Alton (Ali) and his family. Hard to believe both of these babies were preemies! Alton was born at 24 weeks, which is about as early as you can get and still survive. Miracle babies!!

Steve, Adele, Alton, Lemond

Candice, Alton, Adele, Darrah

Say "E Pod!"

Rockin' the Bumbo

Adding the finishing touch to the Christmas tree. I think Adele wants to eat it. Steve, too, possibly.Oh yeah...we had an ice storm! We didn't lose many limbs because of the ice, although power company did have to trim some from our crabapple tree in order to fix some outages. We lost power for a few hours overnight, but nothing crazy.
The view from our driveway.

Our neighbors' back yard.Our side yard (including crabapple tree pre-delimbing).