A Major Month of Milestones!

Well, the seventh month has to be the biggest month of changes so far with me and my baby girl!  Feel free to eavesdrop as I log the milestones...

• With me, I started my massive post-pregnancy hair shedding this month, and I don't see an end in sight.
• I went to work to fill in for the first time leaving her at home with Daddy because he had the day off.  I missed her a bunch, but Daddy did great!  She did not eat and sleep well though because I wasn't there... different routine.
• She started sleeping in her own crib at night instead of co-sleeping with Mommy and Daddy.  The time was coming quickly I knew, especially since we weren't nursing any more.  She started sleeping better through the night and eating less and less.  The night that decided the transition was the night that she would not stay asleep despite the fact I just rocked her asleep.  She wanted to socialize and play because we were in bed with her.  She had previously done that in the middle of night a few nights before.  I had been having her nap in her crib, so it wasn't such a drastic change for her.  It took just a few days of me going in every 2 hours to give her pacifier back and assure her I was still around when needed.  Then it was just about once or twice a night after that for the pacifier.
• But then after a few weeks she figured out how to put her pacifier back in her mouth!  I was so proud of her.  The object permanence thing really helps because then she knew it was right beside her head instead of out of sight thinking it was gone.  The nice thing we have instituted is that the paci stays in the bed when she is up.  I just have to tell leave your paci in the bed and she will spit it out before I pick her up.
• She fell asleep on her own (with no rocking or nursing assistance) for the first time in her life! (newborn included)  This was a few weeks after the night transition.  I had been gradually teaching her to not need me to rock (standing up rocking) to solid sleep and then laying her down and slowly oozing out from under her...  Gratefully the leaving her for a little bit longer each day until she cried then I would go in and rock her to sleep worked over time, and I didn't need to do the cry it out method.  Now, she goes to sleep on her own like a dream for all naps and night!  I thought the day would never come and now it is bitter sweet because I am not "needed" any more...  I am positive her lack of good sleep habits early on was mostly due to her bad acid reflux and just being a baby. ;o)
• She transitioned to two 2 hour naps.  At the beginning of the 7th month she stated putting her naps together, which was awesome for Mommy!  She now has a consistent schedule of sleeping from 9:30-11:30 and 2:00-4:00.  And then 7:00-6:30, give or take a few.  She will wake up (playing in her crib) about 5x a week @ 4am for a 6 oz bottle.  She is just too hungry (I hear her stomach growling some days) to go back to sleep until I give it to her, then she passes back out again.  She won't eat anymore in quantity that day either... I guess her stomach just can't make it all night yet without some substantial solids.
• She started solids full time.  We are slowly adding to her list of "safe" foods.  She had horrible poop burns with avocados!  Go figure... that was one food I could eat breastfeeding her.  Pears caused bad reflux again.  She did well with rice cereal and bananas.  Now she seems okay with butternut squash and green beans. Although she hates them and gags with the texture and flavor.  I have really had to break her need to blow the offending food out of the mouth.  I just wipe her mouth every time she does it, since she hates that.  She knows what she is doing!  When we switched to oatmeal cereal, it was the first thing she has ever LOVED from the get go!  That is when I realized she really did KNOW how to eat, but was just not liking the flavor/textures.  She will inhale a large portion of oatmeal in no time flat... mouth open for bites, no pushing it out with her tongue, etc.  Crazy girl!  She can even tell when I try to hide other foods in her oatmeal...  She now will also eat regular oatmeal that I processed finer in the food processor, but still prefers the baby oatmeal.  She is doing well at holding a banana and gnawing on it as well as the Mum mums rice "crackers".  Thankfully we have not seen any more bleeding in her diapers since the change to formula.
• She also scoots backwards with her arms and slides across the floor.  This frustrates her because her toys slowly get farther and farther away.  She will figure it out soon I am sure.  She has started rocking on all fours like the crawling precursor.  She tolerates being on her belly pretty endlessly now.
• She started rolling over on her own, too!  I guess she had no reason to before. Ha!  Now she does it every time I put her to bed.  She will play and rock on all fours in her crib and then fall asleep on her tummy.  I will flip her over sometimes because she seems to be sleeping fitfully, but then she is back on her belly again.  So I just leave her now...  She still likes to pretend that she doesn't know how to roll over if I am around and will fuss a little until I help her up.  I tell her all the time, "You are fine."
• She loves to walk while holding our hands now!  I keep telling her she needs to crawl first.  But she gets so excited to grab our hands and pull up and then take shaky steps across the room.  She gets really mad when we stop and put her back on the floor.  This girl has ALWAYS preferred the upright position from day 1, so I won't be surprised if she crawls for few weeks and then pulls up to walk soon after.
• When she didn't get her way, she has thrown a few tantrums with all the fake crying and screaming and peeking to see if I am watching the whole episode.  I have my hands full with this girl.
• She started knowingly defying me.  She has this "habit" of putting her left hand on her bottom during diaper changes.  I used to hold her legs and hand all together until I realized that she was doing it on purpose.  Following the advice of the "Raising Godly Tomatoes" book I shouldn't just move her, but I should teach her to obey.  The one spank method did not work with her... she thought that was funny!  But the waiting and not proceeding with the diaper change until she has moved her hand away after I tell her has done the trick.  She does't like laying there bored.  But let me tell you that she tested me on this for a full week at every diaper change until she realized I was serious.  The toy distraction method does not work.  She will just drop it and put her hand back, reiterating to me that she is testing me...
• She starting signing to communicate.  She started doing the all done sign by shaking her hands.  I was doing it off and on trying to teach her it... but I was not aware that at 7 months she was able to actually do it!  I was shocked and she was excited that she can communicate with me other than her whining and screeching.  She has copied the milk sign but not asked outright.  I have noticed her practicing a few other signs, but she doesn't do them constantly making me think I was imagining it.  We have been getting the B.aby Sig.ning Times DVDs from the library and they are great!  She loves them!  I am going to buy them now since I am tired of requesting, renewing, returning and re-renting.  HA!  I have known very early on that she was going to be my communicator.  She was always saying baby babble.
• Which leads to the fact that she has started saying Mama.  She mainly says it when she in bed wanting me or the whole day that I was at work.  Daddy said that she was constantly saying, "Mamamama" all day and looking around for me... She will also say it at times just to see if I will respond. =)  She also says "Dadada" but I don't think that she has connected it to him yet.
• Sydney has such a fun personality and is easy going most of the time.  If she is well rested and not reacting to a food with reflux,  she is such a happy girl with such a sense of humor.  She cracks me up all the time.  She loves to "share" her paci with me and then laugh because I look so funny.  She will sign "all done" as we are starting a diaper change and then laugh because she knows that we are just starting.  She just has to jokingly protest! =)
• She started cheesing for pictures and when given lots of attention.  I can just say "1, 2, 3, smile" when I pull out the camera, and she will smile really big.  Then she started "cheesing" really big with her eyes closed instead.  It is the cutest face!  I think she does it a lot because it gets such a response out of us. =)
• She got her second tooth 1 week shy of the seventh month birthday.  She now has two central incisors.  I know she is working on her uppers, but there is no sight of them yet...
• She can recognize her animals.  She received a fis.her price zoo that has the plastic animals for Christmas.  She will usually hold one while I am changing her diaper, and I will tell what it is and the sound it makes.... just normal mothering jibber jabber.  Well, one night my husband and I were playing with her and her zoo.  I lined the animals up and asked her half joking, "Where is your giraffe?"  She then put her hand on it.  I was shocked, but thought it had to be coincidence.  So I asked, "Where is your lion?"  She then put her hand on top of that one!  I was blown away!  She didn't know any others because I hadn't gone over those with her yet.  Goes to show, this girl is listening and learning whether we think she is too young to understand or not! 
• From very early on (4-5 months old) Sydney would take interest in taking things apart or intently concentrate on figuring out how something worked.  She continues to do that to this day.  She used to work on taking down her play mat animals/mobile.  If she pulled long enough she could get the links free on one.  That is the only one she would work on since that was the case, she was not interested in batting the others around.  She was always fascinated about the wheels on her cars and spinning them around upside down for at least 5-10 minutes at a time.  I didn't attach her Bu.mbo tray well one day and she got it loose.  Now that is all she wants to do if she is playing in the Bum.bo.  Lately she has been concentrating on opening and closing her toy picnic basket over and over, as well as her toy laptop.  (This girl was rather spoiled at Christmas by her extended family and friends.)  The Pl.ayschool animal poppin' pals toy has been a favorite for a while now.  At about 5 months old her daddy showed her how to put them down.  She would get SUPER excited when we would pop them up for her to put down.  Then 6 months old she started figuring out how to pop them up herself.  Her favorite is the key twist one.  I thought that would be the hardest to learn but she just grabs on and swings the whole toy around until it pops.  So in the last 7th month she has been working on popping them all.  She is rather good at it now.  Daddy is so proud that his little girl might become a mechanical engineer like him!  No pressure... =)

Well, that turned out to be quite long!  But they are things swimming around in my head I wanted to get recorded down.  The older she gets, the less I will record I am sure.  I just wanted to be able to look back and say, yes Sydney, you were really 7 months old when you...