Elle's seven-month stats

Elle turned seven months old two weeks ago! No well-baby visit this month.

Unofficial weight estimate: 17 pounds, 4 ounces

Current developments: Sitting unassisted! Army crawling! Lots of babbling of the "mama," "dada," "nana" and "baba" varieties. She blows raspberries and does these cute little vocal exercises, working on her volume. She whispers and "sings" and it is pretty much the cutest thing ever. She's hilarious around people - she smiles at almost every one and totally plays in to comments like "Aren't you the cutest thing ever?!" She's recently added a coy little "bury-the-head-in-mommy's-shoulder" move to her repertoire, too. Seriously, this kid could make the grumpiest person grin.

We've been able to go back to our mommy/baby group a few times in the last month, and it has been really cool to see Elle interact with the "older" kids in the 6-12 month group. We've always talked about how being around other kids kind of rubs off on the others, so babies who had no signs of crawling might suddenly take off after seeing their peers crawl. Same with walking and other developmental milestones. The coolest part about group lately is watching the way the babies interact. All bets are off as toys are up for grabs, moms are forgotten and they all end up in a crowd in one area. Then they see something else that catches their attention ... and they're off! The babies are of varying degrees of mobility, so one might toddle over one that is crawling while another rolls in to another that is standing. It is really neat to watch (provided everyone stays safe, of course!)

Current nicknames: Baby Tim, Fussy Face, Cranky Pants and most of the same, really. Tim has a new song for Elle - a variation of one of his early songs with her, but it goes "Baby's getting bigger - watch out!" and it makes her smile.

Current habits: Sleeping much better at night - usually about 11-12 hours at a time and going down and staying down with little fuss. Elle graduated from the Kristin Sleep Academy this month, which is my way of saying we did sleep training. I could write multiple blog posts about what I've read, what I think, what we did, etc. about sleep training, but I'll spare you. Elle is napping twice a day, usually for 45-90 minutes at a time for a total of 13-14ish hours of sleep each day. There have been a few days where she's still needed her third nap, but most days she's down to two.

She's nursing 4-5 times a day and eating solids once or twice a day. (I'm working on an update on baby-led weaning, but it is going well!)

In general, she is awesome. Happy, adorable, smart and perfect in every way.

We had two sudden and nasty encounters with diaper rash, and I think the culprit was solid food. Since we're not going to stop solid food, and I'm not sure how long it will take Elle's body to adjust to things, I investigated diaper rash creams that are safe for cloth diapers (most of the ones we have on hand, like Desitin and Boudreaux's Butt Paste, can cause build up and absorbency issues for cloth diapers). To treat those two rashes, we switched to disposables for a day or two and slathered on the Desitin, but I don't want to do that long-term.

The solution is possibly weird, possibly genius. There's a line of diaper rash cream called CJ's BUTTer that is cloth diaper safe. And it comes in some a-maz-ing scents like Blueberry Crumble, Coconut Lime Dream, Lavender Essential Oil and Pink Sugar. Elle's new diaper rash cream is the "Vanilla Cake" scent. I wasn't sure I wanted to know how it will smell when mixed with "Craptastic Poo,"  but thankfully, it seems the smell goes away when she poops, so I'm not dealing with a baker's nightmare :)

Mommy life: Linea negra continues to fade. I'm not positive, but I think my pregnancy mask has returned, too, which is not cool. The strands of hair that fell out with gusto around postpartum months 4-6 are now being replaced with little annoying wisps of hair. Bleh. I'm officially down 10 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, although my shape is not what my pre-pregnancy shape was :) I'm about the same weight I was when I was first pregnant and thought I'd shed pounds from working two jobs and being too busy to eat like normal ... but I'm still about 5 pounds from my goal weight and would like to continue toning up.