Watch Ava Grow - 7 Months!!

I did terribly at doing a 6, and/or 7-month photo shoot, so I just pulled some of my most recent pictures of Ava from FB and my phone. I like documenting what she's doing, so I can go back and read it in the future. 

This girl. She is normally the happiest baby ever. This week, she's been fussy, not as easy-going, and just not her normal self. We're not sure if teeth are trying to break through, or if she's just not feeling herself. Yesterday, her 2 naps together only equaled an hour - MAYBE an hour and a half - and I'm sure that contributed to her crankiness. I guess she decided she'd been too easy on us up until this week! Either way, we love this little girl, and she is still happy and easy most of the time - just any amount of fussing for her that isn't hunger-related is unusual for her. 

Weight: 16lbs (as of 10/3/16) 25th %ile

Length: I'll have to look it up

Head Circumference: I'll have to look it up, but I know it was in the 97th %ile!!

Sleep: I have no idea. Sometimes she naps 2 times; sometimes 3 times. Her first nap always seems to be 30 minutes on the dot, no matter what time I put her down. Her second nap is almost always on the go, and is 45-60 minutes (one day it was completely refused!); and her 3rd nap is usually an hour and a half to two hours long. Every once in awhile, it's 45 minutes. Not only do I hate a short 3rd nap because she has a hard time making it until bedtime, but her last nap coincides with Audrey's nap/quiet time, so when Ava short-naps me in the afternoon, I lose any Mommy time I had counted on. She sleeps through the night, though, so that's all I care about!! She starts fussing/crying around 6:40ish, and that means she is ready for that bedtime bottle, and then wants to go to bed. There have even been a couple times she has been so tired by 6:45 that she's only drank 1.5-2oz, and was just melting down so bad that I just gave up trying to feed her a full bottle, and put her to bed, and she just rolled over and went right to sleep. I can't complain about having a baby that WANTS to be put to bed at night! She's almost always up by 6:30, but usually is content in her bed. I try to wait until 7 to get her up. Sometimes, even her happy sounds, though are SOOOO loud that I get her up as soon as she wakes up because I don't want her waking Audrey. Ava can handle a 6am wakeup; Audrey most definitely can NOT! 

Eating: She went through a big growth spurt about a week or so ago because she was easily eating 30oz of formula a day. Lately, she's back to only eating about 22-26oz a day. One of our new developments in the last month is how picky she is in the temperature of her bottle. Oh. My. Goodness. We had to buy a travel bottle warmer because she will ONLY take it at a specific temperature. If it's too cold, she'll spit it out....and then cry because she's hungry! It's a good thing she's cute! 

Clothes: Still in 3-6m/6m outfits. They're starting to get too snug, though. 

New Achievements of the month: 

1. Can kind of sit in a tripod stance

2. Saying "dadada" and "nanana" and occasionally I hear "gagaga"

3. Fake coughs for attention!

Things she likes:

1. A very warm bottle!

2. Textures

3. Standing in front of the mirror with Mommy and waving/looking at the cute baby in the mirror

4. Her bouncy seat! She could live in this contraption. This week while she has been fussier than normal, she's wanted to be held more than normal. If I need to put her down, though, the bouncy seat is always a hit. 

5. Anything Audrey does - this will probably never change!

6. Bubbles - Audrey, Ava, and I went outside one day to enjoy our beautiful fall weather we're having, and Audrey still had some bubbles left over from the summer, so we were blowing them, and Ava was mesmerized by them. The look on her face was priceless like, "ooooohh....what is this??"

Things she doesn't like:

1. Naps, apparently

2. Too hot of a bottle

3. Too cold of a bottle 

4. Being tired

5. Not being fed by 6:45pm!

Other random information:

At her 6-month check-up, the pediatrician detected a heart murmur that hadn't ever been heard before. I had also mentioned that sometimes her hands and feet are purple immediately after she wakes from a nap for a few minutes, so we were referred to a pediatric cardiologist. We found out she does have a small hole in her heart, but it's very small, and it's not causing her any issues (she can eat fine, she's gaining weight fine, she's got a normal energy level for her age), so it's nothing to be concerned about. If we ever feel it is affecting her daily living, we'll go back to the cardiologist to have a small catheter inserted. It would only be a day surgery (nothing major like open heart surgery), and apparently this is very common. It's very possible that we'll never have to do anything about this hole, so we were very thankful to hear this news!