If Tess has been good at anything, it's been sprouting teeth. She has 4 already. And instead of the front 2 coming in on the top first... she has FANGS! They are hilarious, and the above picture does them no justice. Anyone who has seen them IRL can attest! You just have to see them yourself.
We've discovered that she loves to ride in a little hiking backpack for carrying babies on your back. We took her in it when we went to the river a couple of weeks ago. We tied a bunny onto the handle to keep her company, but the scenery was good enough for her. It's cool to see the differences in personality between her and Calvin. We bought the backpack when Calvin was this age, but he didn't like it nearly as much!
She likes her feet,
...and rough-housing with the siblings,
...and wearing Grandpa Tucky's hat.
She likes food.
Real food. Not baby food. I've tried and tried to feed her rice cereal. I've mixed it with everything from formula to water to breast milk. I've even put sugar in it. I've mixed other baby foods with it. Of course... it may help if she would eat other baby foods. But she doesn't really care for Gerber carrots, pears, peaches, green beans... etc. But she really got into some carrots put through the baby grinder.
She really gets into anything potato related.
She really enjoyed the french fries on her first trip to Wendy's.
I got depressed watching her sit in the high chair like a big kid.
The other day, the kids and I made cupcakes for the neighbors. And everyone knows that if you are making cupcakes, you have to eat at least one immediately. This included Tess. This is how you can tell she is a 4th child. I would have never given Jocelyn a cupcake at 7 months. That's a privilege usually reserved for your 1st birthday. But I gave her one anyway, and watched to make sure she didn't choke. After watching her for a minute, I decided that I didn't need to be worried about her getting sick on cupcake... as she only ingested about 1/16 of the cupcake. The rest of it was smashed on her lap and down the front of her diaper.
Needless to say, she needed a bath.
She loves the outdoors.
And getting her picture taken... almost like she knows she's being documented.
She loves water.
Last week we went to the community center to swim. This is something we did a lot of over the summer. But I never put Tess in because I thought the water would be too cold for her. Last week I put her in up to her waist... and she loved it.
She loved the little baby water swings too...
And, she loved meeting her grandparents for the first time.
She can get anywhere in the house by rolling and scooting. She is starting to bring herself up on her knees, and occasionally gets that tell tell rocking motion going. You know... the one that says she will be crawling soon. Which doesn't surprise me, since she is 7 months now. I think all of my kids started crawling around 7 months. Katelyn walked at 9!
She's longer than my other kids were. I don't know her exact stats... but I can tell she's bigger based on the seasonal related clothing items that she's already grown out of! Like, for instance a giraffe Halloween costume that all 3 of my other kids wore (including Calvin who was born on March 10th, and Tess's birthday is March 6th). Then, I bought her a costume sized for "0-9 months." Yeah. It doesn't fit. I can't take it back to the store, so I've decided to take out the seams, and add some fabric so that it will fit her anyway!
She can sit pretty well, but does need some assistance for those times when she gets excited about something and forgets to balance. She can't get from the sitting position to stomach position... or vice versa... but it's soon coming.
I'm determined to do a "formal" photo shoot with her this month, because she's growing so rapidly!
She's a sweetheart, and I love her!
