At almost eight months, Elli is in the process of some developmental leaps.
In the past couple days she's gone from sort of being able to sit, but always tipping sideways within a minute or less if she wasn't at least slightly supported on both sides, to being able to sit, completely unsupported, for minutes at a time. She does still eventually face-plant into the floor when she reaches too far for something while I'm not paying attention, but if I'm sitting down with her it usually just takes a moment of support for her to right herself.
Mikaela was sitting well at about seven and a half months, and of course Liam was already able to sit up (as in, go from his belly to sitting) and was about to start crawling at this age. So from me bragging about how strong Eliane was at a week old, bound to be crawling the earliest of the three, it looks like she might be the latest! Or probably somewhere on a par with Mikaela anyway I'd guess.
She started rolling from back to front at a little past seven months, and unlike when she first rolled from front to back, once she started she never stopped. She still struggles with rolling to the right side (from her back), but she rolls to the left with almost no effort. So she's moving around a bit now, but still not rolling freely around the room the way some babies do. She's just starting to try to pull her legs up under her sometimes, but not really close to crawling. And she can stand, leaning against a low table, briefly. She's not even close to getting up there by herself, though if she's sitting on your lap she'll often push herself up to standing there.
As for eating, she started solids about 6 weeks ago, but like Mikaela she still has quite a strong tongue thrust reflex. Still she's clearly swallowing some food because her nappies are a whole different experience to the way they were when it was all breast milk going through her!
She likes to chew on well steamed broccoli, and has also tried carrot, banana, water melon, avocado probably other things I've forgotten plus a number of bought baby food combinations. Those we give her when there's nothing in our meal that's suitable for her, or else we just mix up some rice cereal with water and dump it (sans bowl) on her highchair tray. She then happily spend the meal playing with mushy food and getting as much into her mouth as she can (I do "feed" her a bit on a spoon, but she'd really rather do it herself), although most of it comes back out and dribbles down her chin. It's a rather messy process, but it keeps her busy during dinner, and she seems to enjoy it.
All in all, Eliane is a complete delight. It still makes me sad that she's my last baby and it's all passing so quickly, but the joy of watching her learn new tricks really does make up for the loss of the old.
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