Daddy’s Favorite Expression, and Other New Things – 7 1/2 months

Scott just loves it when Leah makes this face. What you can’t hear is that she’s blowing a rather impressive and drool-filled raspberry. Her daddy seems to enjoy making the face back at her to try to get her to keep doing it. I have a feeling I’m going to have to break them both of the habit at the same time.

Leah is really on a roll. Literally. If I put her down on the floor for even a second, she’s gone. She sets her sights on something – anything – across the room and just rolls, rolls, rolls until she gets there. It’s really cute, even though it is taking some getting used to for me. I forget every time how quickly she can move like that, so when I leave the room for even a second I have to baby proof. (Pillows and cushions line the coffee table (because she ends up underneath it) and the fireplace (because I’m terrified of an unpleasant meeting between the two). Last night I was sitting on the floor eating supper – it was the only place she was content with me sitting – when I got up to get more from the kitchen. My cup was sitting right there, and I thought, “I’ll be right back. It’ll be okay.” Nope. I should have known better. When I got back, my lemonade was soaking into the carpet, Leah’s little foot tap-tap-tapping on my overturned cup. Not again. She’s also surprised me when I looked up by smiling at me from atop a pile of her books that moments before had been on the shelf.

She loves bathtime! I give her a bath every night, whether she really needs one or not, just as a part of her bedtime routine. I definitely recommend this – she plays hard in the warm water, gets all snuggled up in a towel, massaged with lotion, dressed in some soft pajamas, fed a bottle, and she’s out. She really loves the water, though – splashing and sucking on her washcloth and fighting me for the cup I use to rinse her hair. I just sit back once she’s clean and let her play until the water starts to cool off.

Meal time is, um, fun. She’s a really good eater – has been since we started solid foods – but recently she has been getting really excited during meals, which makes it hard for Mommy to get that tiny spoon in her mouth as her head spins from side to side. Plus, she sometimes wants to help me feed her, and her idea of “helping” isn’t what I would like it to be. When she helps me, we never know which facial orifice the spoon will enter, but we do know that once it gets there it won’t have much food on it, having lost most of it on her hands, bib, and tray on the way. Of all the foods we’ve tried, there aren’t any that she downright doesn’t like. She loves – and I do mean LOVES – her green vegetables, sitting with her mouth wide open before I can even get the spoon reloaded. (Thank you, Lord in heaven.) Meats are questionable unless they’re mixed with something else – like turkey and sweet potatoes, for example. If I had to name a least favorite food, I’d say bananas. Anything with bananas in it elicits some pretty funny faces, and she never seems to eat as much at those meals. We’ve attempted some table food with her, but that hasn’t gone well. We try it, fail, and wait a few more days before trying again. It won’t be too long.

Of all her toys, there is something that stands out as her favorite, and fortunately, it is a part of everything she owns. Tags. She loves them. No matter what I put in front of her, her eyes gravitate right for the tag and in her mouth it goes. I guess she likes the way they feel on her tongue, but it’s become something of a joke for us. My mom even bought her a Taggie, a new kind of toy that has ribbons as tags all over it, and she loves it. Tags, tags everywhere!

For now, she’s Mommy’s girl. She’s developed a serious attachment to me; while it warms my heart, it has definitely made things more complicated. When we’re at home during the day, it’s all I can do to leave the room without her crying. If she sees me walk away, panic ensues. At night, when Scott is home and I’m desperately in need of a break, he can hold her for only a limited time before she wants me back. If he is trying to get her to go to sleep, I have to hide or she remembers that I’m there and then wants me again. I feel really bad for Scott, but he doesn’t seem to mind that for now, I’m the preferred parent. Besides, we’ve heard from several people that in about a year, she won’t want much to do with me, preferring Daddy over everyone else. I’m enjoying it, in a way, while I can.