Elia turns 7 months. Erin has been holding Elia back. Prior to Elia’s 6 month check-up when the doctor started asking about her milestones, and though Albert had been citing Curie’s timeline, Erin had been professing that Elia was still too young to do many things. The reality was that Erin was saddened that this was the last baby, and we would never have a child this small again. We have this plan that once the kids are old enough to be away, and we were able to do so, we would consider adopting two more.
So in this seventh month, we let Elia eat Baby Mumums, one Cheerio, suck on an orange, and drink water from a bottle and a cup. She even drank the juices from Erin’s watermelon, but she did not like the lime (which Curie loved along with lemons at her age). On the weekend of the Fourth of July, Elia went swimming for the first time – though we did have her in a wet suit and coast guard-approved life jacket. We also took her to her first water park. Finally, Elia moved from her side-sleeper to the play-pen to sleep; it is still next to the bed but she gets a lot more room.
Elia scoots around quite well, but doesn’t crawl yet. She can almost clap her hands, and still puts everything she can into her mouth. You can see in the pictures that she is becoming more alert and aware. And she is such a good baby. We are all sick with the rotavirus at the time of this writing. Curie had it first (lots of throwing up), Albert had it the worst, and now Erin and Elia have it, but Elia takes it in stride with a wan smile even after throwing up.
Curie still calls Elia her best friend and says that she loves her. She tells us when Elia is crying and even insists that we help her before helping herself. Having the two of them is really quite joyous and it will only be a matter of time before they play together (and fight and make up and everything else). Curie says it best when she says, “everybody sit down, we’re a family.”
