Gemma: 7 months

The time is passing so quickly and it doesn't even seem like that much has happened in the last month.  I'm a little late in posting this (what's new?), but better late than never!

Gemma is really the joy in our lives.  We love having her with us pretty much 24-7.  (Not to say that we don't have our moments when we'd love to give her to someone else! ;) ) Last week, she was babysat by my mom two days in a row as I had some business to take care of, and as silly as it sounds, we missed her!  Jeff, who works full-time from his home office, even said he missed her that week.  Okay. So enough gushing about how much we love her....I know everyone loves their babies, so I'm sure I'm not saying anything new here.  Here's what our baby G is up to these days:

-She is still scooting backwards and doesn't really seem to care too much about crawling forward.  She has now learned to scoot on her butt, too.  Girl can get where she wants to go without crawling!  I'm guessing she might skip it and move to walking sooner, but we'll see. Although her balance isn't great, she loves to be walked around the house.

-After an allergic reaction to pears (we think), she is back on the solids bandwagon.  She's started eating organic puffs and little pieces of our food, too.  I'm thinking to just try mostly feeding her pieces of food rather than get too involved in baby food.  In fact, she has already eaten whole peas, broccoli, pieces of bread and muffin, wait for it...cookie! (Gah. My mother. :) ) I don't intend to wean her from breastfeeding, but think this might be a good alternative especially since....

-Girl has 6 teeth and is working on 2 more!  Four bottom front teeth are the most prominent, and her two front teeth have shot through a bit, too.  She's currently working on the two to the sides of her front teeth, which may be why...

-She still doesn't sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time during the night.  I've had people ask me if I'm not sick and tired of getting up all the time, and the truth is, yes. It would be great to get a full 6 hours or so of uninterrupted sleep; however, its become my new norm. So, we'll go with it for now! I'll never get those precious moments when its just her and I bonding in the middle of the night back, so I'm not going to complain TOO much about it.

-She is learning to love new songs that I sing her.  If You're Happy and You Know It and Pat a Cake are still favorites, but she also now enjoys "If All of the Raindrops" and "Shake Your Sillies Out." (I'm not sure if those are the proper names for those songs, but you get the gist.)

-Gemma is getting very good at playing independently for decent chunks of time.  Every once in a while, she will whine when I walk away, but she quickly recovers when I tell her I'm still there. :)A

-Her brain is a little sponge right now. In the last couple of days she learned to wave "hi" and "bye." She is also clucking her tongue now.  I am loving this age!

Here are a couple of photos of our little chunk at the beginning of her 7th month.