Ahhh – is there anything more lovely than spring in Oregon? Tonight Clare, Sadie and I went out for a nice walk before bedtime. I showed Clare all of the flowers that were blooming, letting her sniff some of them and touch the petals (and tried to keep her from eating them). She laughed at the dogs who walked past us and yelled at the cars driving on the road. It was a nice way to unwind from the day before dinner. We’ve gone for several long and short walks in the past week and spent some time out on our sadly neglected back deck. I’ve started blowing bubbles for Clare, which she alternately ignores or is confused by.

A few fun things for the past week. Our little music aficionado has started to ‘dance’ a little bit. Specifically, when you sing Row Row Row Your Boat she starts to ‘row’ forward and back. OK, so maybe it’s not dancing in the technical term but it’s moving along to the music. We usually ‘row’ her as a game when we sing so now she does the motions herself along with the song.

Another little fun milestone is that Clare is showing signs of understanding language. I was reading her a story and I pointed to a photograph of a cat and said “look at the kitty.” She smiled and started to pat the picture of the cat. Not only was she able to recognize that the cat in the picture was the same as ‘her kitty’ Prowler, but she recognized the word for it. I was pretty proud!

Lastly, we have some new specials in the expanding menu at Chez McPherson. Clare is now particularly fond of blueberries and cheese. She took to cheese immediately and now it’s become a fast favorite. I got her to eat 2 servings of green beans tonight but putting little pieces of cheese in each spoonful. More and more I’m encouraging her to feed herself by putting food on her tray. If there are blueberries, cheese or avocado they are usually eaten first then she might be convinced to eat the other fruit, veggies or bread. It often takes some convincing and distraction though – songs during mealtime are common place now. I wonder what our neighbors think when they hear us singing “I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas” all the time.

In case you can’t read Clare’s onesie, it says Who’s Your Paddy? with a little shamrock. Our Irish girl celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in style with appropriate attire from Auntie Carrie.
Clari-belle is making huge developmental strides these days. It’s hard for us to keep up with her! Between the time I wrote and posted the last blog it was already out of date. Literally, on Friday Clare was ‘working on the pincher grasp’ and by Saturday she reached for a blueberry, picked it up between her index finger and thumb and put it in her mouth. Somehow that connected in her sleep on Friday night. She’s also gotten a little bit closer to actually talking. On Saturday she and J spent the day together (I, unfortunately, had a 13 hour day at work) and from morning until night all she said was “dadadadadada.” There’s been a lot of “dadada” and “mamama,” sometimes it even seems to be directed at J and I. She’s also imitated some of my intonation – I sang “all done” to her and she imitated my sing-song. I’m thinking we’ll get some words sooner rather than later.

There have been fewer changes this week on the mobility front, much to Clare’s frustration. She is trying to ‘throw’ herself forward but hasn’t figured out getting her arms and legs in motion together. She does use her hands to kind of pivot herself in a circle and with that along with rolling she does cover some ground. She especially likes to practice in her crib instead of sleeping – not our favorite new development.

There are a few things I want to remember at Clare’s seventh month. (I actually wrote this post a few days ago, but I’ll be posting it on her eighth month birthday).

Once the rolling starts, there’s no way to stop it. Our girl is a rolling machine. It’s taking a bit of adjustment for us to get used to her moving around – I went into the kitchen the other day and when I came back Clare had moved 6 feet and was trying to get into the dog’s bed. She is having a lot of fun with it though and it’s neat to see her exploring her world more.

I also start ‘doing’ Clare’s hair this week. It’s hard to keep Little Miss Moving to hold still long enough to do something, but I was able to get a Pebbles-style pony tail in her hair. She was so freakin’ cute that I might try to do it more often.

Gosh our girl is growing up fast! With her bangs and hoody, she looked like a little toddler! You can see why I took all the pictures – who could resist that smile. I also stood her up on her crib – she stayed up there for a while! She’s not pulling herself up on things (yet) but she was quite proud of herself standing up like a big girl. She continues to enjoy eating and we’ve now added bagels (or at least the soft part of the bagel), meat, and peas to her diet. I made up several batches of baby food over the weekend, so Little Miss has pureed green beans and peaches waiting for her this week.

I’ve been remiss in the blog again, but it’s been such a busy, busy week around here that I haven’t had much time to sit still. The highlight has been a visit from Grandma T. Clare took to her immediately (of course) and was bursting into smiles for her within a day. Yesterday she greeted Grandma with a big hug after a nap. We didn’t do to much during the visit, but Grandma T and Clare got lots of bonding time in. It was also an exciting week, full of milestones for Teresa to witness.

After a few months of on-again-off-again teething symptoms Clare’s first tooth is finally breaking through. It doesn’t seem to be causing her to much pain (yet), and it’s pretty cute to watch her constantly sticking her tongue out and playing with her lips as she gets used to the feeling of having a tooth.

Besides that, Clare is now getting mobile. She’s started rolling over! All of a sudden last week she rolled from her tummy to her back and then over again to her tummy – a roll 360 roll. We were watching the Olympics at the time and I think it inspired her. Since then she’s rolling constantly and won’t stay in one place. She’s also getting increasing frustrated with not being able to reach things, so I suspect crawling will be soon after. The weekend will be spend baby-proofing.

Clare has also started liking solid foods. Suddenly she eats full servings of fruit, veggies and cereal – tonight she even ate 2 ice cube servings of pureed sweet potatoes and cereal. I’m thinking about introducing some meats next and seeing how she takes to them. It’s a nice thing that she’s finally starting to eat food. Clare weighed in at 17 lbs. over the weekend, which is about a pound and a half gained in a month and a half. Whew! That’s a lot of growth for a little girl whose diet has been all breastmilk. I’m appreciating having some of her calories coming from other sources. So far I’ve made all of her baby food and I think I’ll keep it up. She really won’t eat purees for much longer and after that we’ll be feeding her whatever we eat for dinner.

More than all of the milestones, our girl continues to be sweet and joyful. Things like making her baby food, nursing, washing her diapers (we use cloth), etc. are so fun for me. It may seem like extra work in these days of convenience, but I’d rather take other shortcuts and spend my time taking care of Clare and doing things for her. Our laundry piles up, but I never get behind in Clare’s laundry. I feel like everything associated with her and taking care of her is a joy, so I want to do it the best I can.