Seven months

Happy seven months, Maya!  Trucking along, aren’t we :)

At seven months, Maya is nothing if not willful (perhaps she comes by it honestly, though).  She is definitely going through a whiny phase, which is actually a welcome relief from the “all out screaming” response to not getting what she wants that she’s had since birth (always complicated by the fact that we often don’t know what she wants!).  She’s also in the “Mommy should never leave the room phase,” which is somewhat trying.  But she’s also a friendly, adventurous, loving little girl who gives really awesome hugs when you pick her up - well, when she feels like it :)  She smiles at strangers in the grocery store, loves dancing (and music of all sorts, really), and embraces any and all outdoor adventures.

The very best new development of the month has happened within the last few days.  Maya has started “sharing” things with me, taking whatever she’s been chewing on and putting it in my mouth for a few seconds, just in case I want to partake in the fun as well.  Gross, yes, but also really sweet.

Physically, Maya is a tank...albeit still a stationary one.  She’s one of the biggest and strongest babies in her swimming class, despite being the youngest by over a month and a half.  She can fully hold herself up by grabbing on to the rim of the pool wall in a little mini pullup, and she also regularly tries to fling herself out of the Ergo - and gets pretty close!  But despite her great strength and coordination, she’s still nowhere near crawling and refuses to support herself on all fours, although we’re trying to help her along with extra tummy time and some demonstrations of “strong arms!”  Since she’s such a fantastic sitter, I thought she might transition to crawling in a rather unorthodox way by reaching her arms out and planting them in front of her, then rolling from butt to knees (especially in order to get to a far-away toy), instead of the normal tummy → knees → rocking → crawling progression.  But when we arrange toys in a wide ring around her, she just butt bounces over to them until she can grab them by leaning and reaching - not efficient, and not really a gateway to crawling.  So now I think that if she doesn’t just skip floor locomotion and become an early walker, then she’ll end up being one of those (admittedly adorable) “butt scooters” (à la this one) who never crawls properly.  Early walking is probably a long shot, though, as she’s still pretty unsteady on her feet, even though she *loves* to stand will no longer let us set her on the floor in a sitting position, instead stiffening her legs so that they hit the ground first and then refusing to bend them so she can sit.

Her fine motor skills are doing far better that her gross motor skills, with some pretty amazing finger manipulations.  Watching her play with her bath toys is fascinating.  She’s pretty close to pointing, and husband taught her an early version of waving the other day, which she will do will some heavy prompting.

Other interesting tidbits:

• Favorite colors (as measured by toy attention bias): yellow and purple
• Favorite game: mimicking Daddy banging his hand on the table
• Favorite book: still “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” (Mommy is tired of this one)
• Favorite animal: Abby (although she loves dogs, too)
• Favorite toy: her Fisher-Price roll arounds (the tactile set) - expensive, but these are actually fantastic little balls that vary not only in color and texture, but also weight

We do our first morning of daycare on Wednesday from 8am-noon.  I will probably stay for most of it - and probably a few times after this one - just to get her settled.  We are only doing part-time for now, basically half days when any of the regulars are away on vacation.  Please think some good thoughts for us - and hope that she naps there so that she’s well-behaved and they don’t kick her out.  Mommy needs to write some papers!

Updated with some photos: