Eloise – Month 7 to 8

We’ve had a big month! The weather warmed up and I felt brave enough to start taking Eloise on bigger outings. This month we visited several galleries and restaurants.

Galleries/Museums:

• Jewish Museum – Eloise’s first museum! We went to see a photography exhibit.
• Whitney Museum to see the Biennial
• MoMA to see Cindy Sherman
• Brooklyn Museum to see Keith Haring

Restaurants/Hotels:

• Carlyle for drinks
• Pierre Hotel high tea
• Balthazar
• Moo Burgers
• Colonie
• Momofuku Milk Bar

We also visited Alec at work, at Twitter NY HQ, and watched members of the Isadora Dance Company perform some basic moves at a reading for the launch of a graphic novel based on Isadora Duncan at the kids’ book store Books of Wonder. This month was also Alec’s birthday and Eloise’s first Easter. We also started baby & me yoga classes. Unlike our classes we tried when E was 6-12 wks old, this time she was happy the entire time just sitting at the end of my mat, playing with toys. It was amazing!

Developmental

• Scooting around the room on her bottom.
• Rolling both ways easily.
• Moving from sit to her hands and feet, rocking, and moving to her stomach
• Trying hard to crawl – gets up on her hands and feet and pushes on feet
• Trying to pull herself up on her highchair
• Her hair is coming in – very blonde and curly.
• Started reaching for us, really watching where we are going, if we leave a room she wants to follow.
• Scratching fingernails across surfaces to feel the texture.
• Making “o” noises, a sound that sounded a lot like “mama” and laughing a lot. Her laugh sounds just like mine. 
• Awake for much longer periods. Can easily be awake for 4, even 5 hours at a time, particularly if we are out and about.
• Playing with her hands, clenching and unclenching her fist. Looks like she’s waving to herself.
• Notices when objects are not in her sight anymore and looks for them, such as her toys, or people.
• Playing with her tongue and sticking it out. Looks pretty special.
• Really social. Loves being outside, smiles at everyone on the street.
• Getting into EVERYTHING. After a bad moment where she spilt balsamic vinegar all over herself, me and the floor at Alec’s work, she has been non-stop grabbing everything in reach. This makes eating out particularly challenging and a high chair or her stroller are now a must.

Enjoys:

• Board books.
• Being in the stroller outside and will fall asleep in it.
• The bath. Will happily sit in the bath slashing and playing with her toys till the water goes cold.
• Swinging in the swings.

Sleep:

• After a few bad days where Eloise would roll onto her stomach in her crib, not be able to roll back and scream, she finally figured out how to roll both ways. She then started sleeping on her stomach and side in her crib and as a result, sleep more soundly. We had some fantastic nights with only one night waking (an almost 6 hour stretch of sleep for me!), but also a sleep regression possibly caused by the top teeth coming down – one has almost broken through.
• During the day she goes to sleep pretty easily on her own by just putting her down in the crib. Night time is different – we can’t get her to sleep on her own, or back to sleep during the night.
• The long day naps are gone! It’s all about 30 – 45 min naps tops, with longer awake periods of up to 4/5 hours.

Food:

• Our schedule is breastfeed 9am, 2pm, 6:30pm, 10:30pm (dream feed) and any night wakings.
• Solids – 7am, 12pm, 5-5:30pm. She’s eating a lot of food now – trying finger foods like toast, bread, rice puffs (loves to feed herself them), melon, baked vegetables, cheese. She’s a really good eater and will try most things. She loves food from our plates, such as omelette, goats cheese, ricotta and spinach.
• Getting the hang of drinking water from a sippy cup and cup with a straw. She won’t drink milk from a bottle or cup, but enjoys the water.
• We started putting Eloise in the high chair this month and she really likes it, particularly since I put food on the tray for her to pick up and feed herself. She also likes to bend over and try to pick things up with her mouth.