Austen is fascinated by everything within reach of her eyes, ears or hands. She grabs and watches and listens. New things are best. Old things get boring – except for kitties. Change is good. Staying home with Mommy all day causes fussies: “That’s too much fussies,” exclaims Mommy. When one talks to Austen using silly voices or plays peek-a-boo, she laughs and laughs and laughs, even outdoing Daddy’s capacity for mirth.
While Austen immediately warms up to babies she meets, it sometimes takes her a few minutes to feel comfortable around strange adults. Eventually, she turns on her “big smile.”
Austen is now a crib dweller in the evening hours – even during some naps. Mommy is so happy to have some privacy in the master bedroom. However, Daddy often camps out in the playroom to tend to Austen during her night wakings. Although much improved, Austen is not sleeping through the night but hopefully this will change before next month’s update.
At the end of month seven, Austen is getting around a bit. Mommy plops her on the floor in one location and returns to find her having twisted and rolled and climbed five feet away. She can go from sitting to flat on her stomach, then roll onto her back. Once on her back, she reverses the process: rolls into crawling position, and then backs herself into a sitting position. This helps a lot considering she would previously start crying after getting stranded on her back, her least favorite position. (She cries while getting diaper changes until Mommy or Daddy sit her up.)
Other physical feats: Standing while holding onto her Leap Frog Table or a person. Pulling herself up to standing while in her crib, or using the Bumbo chair. Squirming out of her Bumbo chair. Stretching and grabbing the fish dangling from the mobile on her swing. Rolling to the edge of the bed in the guest room and scaring Mommy. At the beginning of month seven, her big achievement was the ability to move from sitting position to face-down crawling position. At the end of month seven, this is commonplace and Austen is an experienced sitter, rarely tipping over.
Austen usually sounds like she’s possessed with all the grunting and guttural sounds: “Rar rar rar…Rah rah rah …Aw wah…Mawah.” Mommy and Daddy perform regular exorcisms. In the mornings and sometimes in the evening as she’s about to fall asleep, she does a round of “da da da.” She’s mastered clapping, so much so that Daddy has caught her clapping in the middle of the night while she’s barely awake. Austen entertains people at the grocery store with her smiling and clapping: a nice palm-to-palm slap.
Austen’s small motor skills are advanced for her age. Walking down the hall, Austen reached for the double light switch, so Mommy paused to let her touch it. In a matter of seconds, Austen turned both lights on. When first introduced to a veggie puff (her first experience with an object smaller than the diameter of a toilet paper roll), Austen pinched it using her thumb and pointer finger. Mommy and Daddy believe her skills are a result of constant exploration and manipulation of an assortment of toys, rattles and everyday objects.
Although Austen has no teeth, she’s still teething: drooling and chewing on things. She eats formula, milk, rice cereal, carrots, bananas, apples and sweet potatoes.
The Peg Perrego infant car seat (Primo Viaggio) has been retired because Austen outgrew the height limit. She’s switched to a Britax Marathon car seat (reversible, up to 65 lbs). She still snoozes in her car seat but, unlike with her infant travel system, it’s not possible to transfer her from car to stroller without waking her.