Siena hits the seven month mark today! When she turned six months old, you might remember that we celebrated three ways:  a half birthday block party, starting solids, and starting this blog. Today let’s “celebrate” with an update on those three things, shall we?

Half birthday block party -

I was waiting to publish the block party post I’ve been working on, because I wanted to figure out how to include some pretty adorable video that’s too large to upload with our blog software. It looks like the best video choice would require uploading to and streaming from YouTube, but without the permission of all the neighbors appearing in the video, that doesn’t seem quite right. So in a few minutes here I’ll publish that post, sans video.

Starting solids -

In the past month Siena has tasted baby rice cereal in a variety of thicknesses,  as well as mixed with both expressed milk and water. She’s tasted guacamole when we were eating out at a deli, which prompted me to later try avocado as a finger food at home. (So many delicious avocado chunks ended up on the floor that I decided to wait for better fine motor control before trying again. I didn’t mind sacrificing Rice Chex though, so I’ve been getting those a bit soggy and letting her practice her pincer grasp with them instead. They stick to her fingers better, so more make it to her mouth.)

Here are a few cell phone photos, for what they’re worth:

Even with her limited repertoire, she makes her preferences known when it comes to eating, lemme tell ya! I had read in Child of Mine that’s it’s good to hold the spoon a few inches in front of her to see if she’s ready for another bite, and to wait for her to indicate that she’d like some more. The book said she’d indicate that she’d like some more by leaning forward and opening her mouth.  Siena didn’t read the “indicating that you’d like some more” section of the book though, so she tells me she’s ready by grabbing onto the spoon and helping my hand bring it to her mouth! Just yesterday she fussed and kicked when I offered the spoon, and I realized she wanted more Rice Chex instead!

Starting this blog -

I have enjoyed using this blog as a venue for sharing updates and pictures of Siena, but I wish I didn’t have to spend so long on each post. Hawk in Winter tells me it will get faster as I become more familiar with the code, particularly when it comes to arranging the pictures the way I want them.

Maybe by her eight month birthday we’ll have pictures of OUR family in the header, rather than the ones that came with the theme. ;-D