Even though she’s getting close to eight months, I couldn’t let October pass without writing Clara’s seven month update. Lots of changes have happened this month, the biggest of which has been crawling. Though she hasn’t perfected it yet, Clara is essentially crawling all over the place. I’m calling it crawling and not scooting because she lifts her stomach off the ground when she moves. Her movement still consists of a hybrid of scooting, rolling and crawling, but it’s effective. She still loves being on her stomach and rolls to it pretty much as soon as I put her on the ground. She’s also learning to move from a sitting position onto her stomach, which has been interesting and amusing to watch. She started by falling to the side and then rolling, but now she tries to lean forward and gradually move her arms forward until she ends up on her stomach.

Another big change we’ve seen this month is the emergence of her top two teeth. This brings her tooth total to four at not even eight months. I get the feeling she’s going to have a mouthful before we make it to her first birthday. These teeth have bothered her much more than her bottom teeth did. Now that they’ve popped through, I’m hoping she’ll have a reprieve from teething for a little while.

Clara is continuing to eat new foods and has yet to turn down a thing we’ve offered her. We most recently gave her black bean burgers, and she was a big fan. We try to make sure she’s exposed to a variety of different tastes and textures in the foods we give her.

Early in her seventh month, Clara took her second plane trip. Counting two trips to Alabama, including one that required a layover in Atlanta, this brings Clara’s plane total to six. We leave for Dallas in just over a week, which means she will have been on eight planes in her eight months of life.

She’s continuing to make tons of talking sounds. We’ve heard so many consonants that it’s hard to keep track. There are g, c, d, m, n and f, just to name a few. The child likes to talk, there’s no doubt about that. She’s also really into “blowing raspberries” right now and often does it when she’s trying really hard not to fall asleep. Because of her newfound movement, she’s discovered door stops and tries to chew on them. I also found her chewing on the leg of my office chair the other day. She has wooden chew toys, but apparently the chair is more appealing.

She’s got lots of firsts coming up soon – Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas – and we’re both thrilled at what we can do to make these holidays special for her. Not only will this be her first Christmas, it will be our first Christmas in Virginia and the first one at our new home. We’re both insanely excited about starting traditions with her that will hopefully continue for many more years.