7 months

We are mobile.

Mina started crawling, really crawling on all fours, the first week of her 7th month. Our world has completely changed! Although she's gotten really good at crawling, well balanced and quite fast, she really would much rather stand. One skill mastered and immediately on to the next. 5 days after her first crawl she pulled herself up to standing in her crib. She enjoys standing and practices standing and walking while holding onto the ottoman or sofa. She occasionally lets go and can balance free-standing briefly (before plopping down on her diapered butt).



That same week she started giving kisses. Oh my are they sweet. Round, soft open-mouth kisses... very moist with drool. At first you had to ask for them, but eventually she started to give them out unsolicited. Only to Mommy & Poppy so far. <3



Mid-way through the month Mina started to communicate with us by using sign language. We've been using sign language with her since she was about 2 or 3 months old. For a while there it seemed like it was a futile effort, but we persevered. Yay! Patience paid off! We were all out for a walk on morning and Mina started fussing. I thought it was her diaper, so I took her in the bathroom to change her and she kept fussing and giving me this Look. Well, I finally took notice of her hand which was making the sign for "Milk" in a very determined fashion. Later that day she signed again when Poppy was around. She's not stopped. That girl wants a lot of milk, let me tell you. :) She gets very excited when we make the sign for "Cat." Once when mommy made the sign she looked around for the little devils! When we read to her we also use sign language for some of the animals in the books. She gets a kick out of that. We think the next sign she uses will either be "cat" or "duck."



Solid food has been fun, ups and downs. We're making about 75% of her food. She's a good eater for the most part. If she's in the mood for it she eats it. Otherwise it's back to the old boob juice! Still mostly pureed foods. We started trying to get her eating small bits of food just recently. She's progressed to three solid meals a day.