Claire is actually now 7 months! It’s kind of hard to believe,  but I will admit that I am enjoying her more as she becomes seemingly less breakable. And the fact that she lets us sleep all night with a few hours to ourselves before bed and a little bit of time in the morning definitely helps the situation!

I had been jotting down my notes about her development and cuteness over the past few months, with the intention of posting them in a more timely fashion. I figured a combo post of months 5 & 6 wouldn’t hurt anyone 🙂 So here it is:

Five Months

(Claire’s white and blue sweater and matching headband were handmade by my amazing friend Betsi)

Here is the 5 month update on Claire:

• Loves putting her toes & feet in her mouth
• Makes the cutest noises
• We thought she was going to crawl a few times – getting close!
• Occasionally can put her schnulie (from the German for pacifier – schnula [which I’m sure I spelled horribly incorrectly] – made cutesy by me) in her mouth the right way
• Likes to pull on my hair while I hold her and has been known to not let go when I go to set her down
• Recently started eating real baby food. She loves sweet potatoes. She has also tried pumpkin, honeycrisp apples, and pears. I loved the pears – Claire did too!
• I love kissing her on the cheeks – she loves it and makes the cutest faces & noises every time
• Started sleeping in her crib right at 5 months. It has been a pretty smooth transition. She is good about sleeping through the night & generally sleeps at least 10 hours which is a true gift!
• Michael has a cute trick to get her to smile: he sings “hello, hello, hello!” Going up a note each time. Claire smiles and laughs.
• Apparently I say “Hello” to Claire in a sing-song voice quite often.
• She is in a high percentile for height, lower for weight, which gives her a tall, lean look.
• Grandma is convinced she is left-handed. We think she might be on to something. When I first started kissing her on the cheeks more often she only responded to kisses on the left cheek. She also has been known to grab for things with her left hand first. She would share this characteristic with my Grandma Hurley if she turns out to be a leftie. I’m kind of excited to find out if she is leftie – I think it would be a cool way to be different from other people.
• Her skin is SO soft!
• Her eyes continue to lighten up. They are currently a medium to dark brown.
• I recently re-discovered The Bearenstein Bears cartoons on YouTube. I find it much less obnoxious than Daniel Tiger so we have been watching that in the mornings (but she still favors Daniel so I might have to let her have that one)
• I like to give her a bath with Christmas music playing. I also play Christmas music in the morning when I give her her first bottle and read to her. She is most certainly going to know all the words to all the Christmas songs.

Six Months

Claire turned 6 months on December 10th. Six Months! She is most definitely a Big Baby now, however, she has a slimmer look than the other Big Babies I had compared her to at the pediatirician’s office during the early months. We will attribute that to her being an official formula-fed baby from about 4 months-ish on.

So far, since around the 6 months mark:

• Starting to kind of sit up on her own, using her baby abs to get herself in a sort of sit-up-ish position.
• Not quite yet crawling: Claire is not to the point where she is officially crawling, but you do have to watch her and make sure she doesn’t hit her head on things in the living room.
• Since she is such a shimmying baby, she has made her way over to the presents under the Christmas tree and took to a package of dog toys that Michael had expertly wrapped. After several hackings and a few slobberings on the ends, she found a way to break into it the other day while Face Timing with Omi. She also enjoyed putting the new dog toys in her mouth. A red heart-shaped dog toy and a yellow star-shaped dog toy. Of course, it was too cute. We know Griswold doesn’t mind.
• Griswold often confuses Claire’s toys for his own. Particularly the adorable tiny teddy bear and blankie from Joey & Conny and the sweet snowman snowball from Annie’s (not me – the other Annie) mom, Michele. We scold him but secretly think it’s cute.
• When we positioned Claire in front of the tree to attempt to get a Christmas card photo, she completely took to the tree. She grabbed the (fake) pine branches in awe, clinging on to them for dear life. It was, of course, adorable.
• I noticed she is sprouting a few longer hairs the other day! It appears she will soon no longer be a baldish baby!
• Started waving! It seems that Grandpa was the first person she waved at.
• Started eating the baby cheese puffs. Also had her first real face to face interaction with another baby: 12-month old Baby Kai. Kai was sitting in his Bumbo seat on top of the counter in a cabin we were visiting in Flagstaff with our Vegas friends. Claire was sitting in her’s, facing him. Next thing I knew, Kai was handing her a cheese puff and I was saying “Oh how cute! …wait, is she going to choke on that?” The answer was no. She didn’t do a whole lot of cheese puff chomping. It was more like Kai would give one to her, then he might take it back and put it in his mouth. They also played footsie. It was adorable.
• Started eating the baby food from the food pouch. The first time was on a trip to the Verrado Coffee shop with Annie. We started feeding her the pouch and she kind of took to it. Also decided that it is a much easier way to feed a baby than with a spoon.
• Laughs and smiles A LOT. I would say she has gone from a baby who primarily cries to one who primarily laughs and smiles. Which has been quite the nice change. And laughing in her face almost always gets her to stop crying, at least temporarily.
• Likes to take her velcro-fastened bibs off.
• Started using her walker (aka go-kart) from Omi. She started by going backwards, but quickly caught on to the concept of moving forwards. And then not too long after that learned how to back out when she got stuck and start going the other way. I was impressed with her driving skills.
• Current favorite nickname: My Little Elf on a Shelf
• Grandpa’s favorite nickname: Bunny
• Omi likes to call her Lady Claire, and has since the beginning (maybe even when I was still pregnant!)
• Tried her first sippy cup – still working on figuring out how it works
• After Christmas, we took my parents to Illumination AZ, which is a drive-through Christmas lights extravaganza. I didn’t really think she would care much about it but she absolutely loved looking at all the lights. She was so alert, looking all around, turning her head from side to side in her car seat.
• Very recently started crib napping twice a day for 1 to 2 hours each, and it is heavenly. Prior to the crib nap routine, it was generally an Ergobaby nap routine, where she would nap on me, Annie, or Michael during the day, several times a day. It definitely wore on our legs and backs and we are all thankful to Annie for getting her used to crib napping!

Our Big Baby keeps getting bigger and more fun as the days go on. She is teething for real and might have her first tooth any time now. She continues to army crawl so I guess we can’t say she is officially crawling in the traditional sense of the word, but she gets around. She has recently started kind of trying to stand, where she does almost a downward dog type pose before she collapses back on the floor. We might never end up getting an official first crawl out of her, but no doubt the first step, word, tooth, etc. are right around the corner.