Seven months

Our Violet is seven months old, on that downward slide towards her first birthday.

Hmmm. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I adore her as she is, and wish she could stay this smiley and snuggly forever.

She is truly a joy, so full of happiness and grins for everyone. She gives us kisses - I think! - by chewing on our chins. That won't feel so good when she has teeth, but no signs of those yet.

In recent days she has succeeded in pushing herself from lying down, up to sitting. That was a feat she was working on for at least a week, rocking and pressing up on her elbows.

She still isn't zooming around the room by crawling, as I thought she would be by now. It seems she is content with her speed of travel, and her mode - crawling two paces, then lunging, then rolling.

The photo of her with Cora is from her doctor appointment this week, when we got the second half of her six-month shots. I put her on the scale, and she was 16 pounds, 4 ounces, in her clothes and diaper.

Foodwise, she enjoyed a bit of banana last week, and grabbed at some of my dinner tonight, but not much goes down her throat.

However, she opened up a Farley's baby rusk (a kind of cracker) from Nan and Pop in her Advent Calendar on Dec. 1, and she loved it! We gave it to her to hold, and she gnawed on it for a while and ingested a good deal of it. I think we'll need to buy more of these we go to England in a few weeks!

The last photo is from Violet's eye exam last week. The doctor said her eyes look great, and she might even see a little bit better than other babies her age.

The photo shows a test where the doctor holds the two cards, one with a faint outline of a face, and watches to see if her eyes go the card with the face.