Shoshana 7 months

Shosh turned 7 months old on February 13th, 2014.

Here are the things that happened in her life in the month leading up to that:

The first thing is a sad bit of news. On January 19th, Gert, our pug, went to go live with some friends of ours. It was a tough decision for us to make, but she had been slowly and progressively getting worse with the kids. It got to the point where she bit Judah and broke the skin. She just slowly became less and see tolerant of the them and she even started to snap at Shosh when she would accidentally hit her with her foot. It was all very sad. We have had her since she was a puppy, but we felt that keeping her would just make her even more resentful/aggressive towards kids and it just wasn't what was best for Gert or for us. Luckily, we have super awesome friends who LOVE animals, do not have any kids, and just so happened to have a pug on their pet wish list. We feel like we gave Gertie a good life and now have given her a better life by having her live with Joy and Brad (Thanks, guys!). She is very happy there. She gets a lot more attention (from grown ups, not toddlers trying to pick her up or play with her by pulling her leg). She has made friends with their dog, who has a lot more energy and loves to play (unlike our lump of a saint bernard). There are also 3 cats that she is slowly winning over. I hear two of them will even sit on the couch near her. We definitely miss her, but know that it was the right decision.

I was originally planning on making the bit about Gert into its own post, but I have yet to go through and pull out a bunch of photos of her through the years, so I figure I better just include it in here or I who knows when I will get around to it.

Anyway, after that bit of sadness, on with more normal baby type stuffs.

Shosh had some super fun sleeping habits this month! Except not at all.

She definitely had a sleep regression going on. Or maybe she was having a growth spurt? Or maybe sleep regression because of growth spurt? Who knows. Babies are hard to figure out sometimes.

She was waking up every one and half to three hours... and then nursing for 30 plus minutes. No long chunks of sleep for her... or me.

She also went through a stint of being awake from anywhere from two to four hours straight in the middle of the night. So much fun! She wasn't super colicky or upset, just AWAKE. So very awake. She wanted to just hang out and be held and look around her dark room and, you know, maybe play with your face and pull your hair. FUN.

This month she was able to sit on her own for longer chunks and even play with toys by herself, which is a very cute and handy development.

She went on her first hike this month to Latourelle Falls, which I wrote a short blog post about on my photography business website. She was not into it. She either cried or nursed while I had her in the front carrier (a beco gemini, which I highly recommend, by the way). We turned back early because she was being such a pill, which turned out to be a good thing anyway since the trail was iced over and pretty treacherous if we had continued on.

We were a better about having her use her potty this month. She would go a couple of times a day, usually we had the best luck after nursing or napping.

She now takes baths with Judah every night. It has certainly made the bedtime routine easier now that they can do that together.

She was not really into eating real food. We are not sure what about it she doesn't find appealing: the flavor? The texture? All we do know is that girl is not a fan of avocados! Or bananas. Or any other food we put in front of her. She will always try what we gave her. After a couple of times of trying to get it into her mouth she eventually would make contact, but then spit it right back out and just make the most disgusted face.

Snow. It happened. It was lame. She was sick. Judah was sick. They ended up with ear infections. Willie and I had colds. We all were sick. I blogged about it here.

So there you have it. January/February was not the most awesome time at our house. We had to give away our pug, there was very little sleeping going on, and everyone was sick at one point or another. Yeesh, no wonder I wasn't feeling super pumped about writing this entry.

On the plus side, Shosh is adorable and generally a very cheerful and easy baby. And she is cute, strike that, she is freaking adorable. I sure do love her so. She is doted on by everyone in the house (well except the cats and the fish, but I'm not counting them).