Seven Months

Little Miss Riley Jane is seven months today.

What a sweet seven months this has been. I have especially loved this past month.

She is such a joy to us and to everyone she encounters these days.

She smiles and laughs and plays. I find that it's getting harder to get things done around here because I just want to play with Riley while she's awake. I don't want this time in life to fly by without stopping to soak in those adorable smiles she gives me anytime I give her any attention at all.

She is sitting up on her own and she is close to crawling (from what I can tell). Even though I love playing with her, she is very good at playing by herself these days. I just put her on a blanket in our living room with a couple toys scattered around and she's happy for a long time, just trying to scoot to the toys. I remember the days when she would cry every time I put her down. This is such a nice change!

I'm always wondering what a day in the life of other stay-at-home moms is like, so here's a sample of what our day kinda looks like. I stress the kinda because I've become really flexible and I try to go with the flow, depending on what we have going on that day.

*Riley's still eating about every 3 hours (except at night when she goes 12 hours). I know several babies that can go 4 hours between meals at this age so I tried several different things, but it seems Riley prefers smaller, more frequent portions. So that's what I do!

6:00am - I'm trying to wake up at this time to run and do a quick morning devo with Josh but this does NOT always happen. I also try to make breakfast and lunch at this time. (I'm much more likely to eat healthy if I have a meal ready for me to grab.)

8:00am - Riley's breakfast (oatmeal & fruit). She usually wakes up at about seven because we have a small house and every little noise wakes her up. But thankfully, she doesn't act hungry until 8ish, so that's when we do breakfast. (This is a new thing - I was feeding her at 7am every morning until just recently.) I usually give her a bath after breakfast. I was originally bathing her at night, but that became too difficult for me. We have church stuff in the evenings, so it's just easier to bathe her in the morning.

9:00am - Riley's nap (between 1 and 2 hours). I try to clean the house during this time. If I didn't get to shower before she woke up, I shower at this time.

11:00am - 6 oz. bottle (I now just BF for breakfast & dinner). She holds her own bottle! I was giving her veggies at lunch, but in order to do that, I had to stop her from drinking more than 2 oz and I just decided against that. It seemed pointless to me. If I have to run errands that day, I try to do them at this time.

12:00pm - Riley's nap (between 1 and 2 hours). I usually work on various projects at this time, such as publications for the Bryan church or a blog post.

2:00pm - 6 oz. bottle. If it's a pretty day, we go on a walk or go to the park at about this time. (I can't wait to take her to the pool in the summer!)

3:00pm - Riley's nap (between 1 and 2 hours). I start making dinner during this time. I know it seems super early, but if we aren't sitting down to eat by 5:00, then Josh doesn't get to eat before class. And if Riley wakes up at 4:00, then it becomes difficult to cook. So I just try to make the meal early and try to keep it on low heat until dinnertime.

5:00pm - Riley's dinner (veggies).

6:00pm - Riley usually gets really tired at about this time and she should go down for a nap. However, we're frequently at church stuff, so this nap can be tricky. If we can get her to sleep on mine or Josh's chest for about twenty minutes, she's usually good to go.

8:00pm - 8 oz bottle, a storybook (if she can even stay awake), and bedtime. It was a lot of work to move her schedule back an hour, from 7am to 7pm to 8am to 8pm, but it was worth it since we usually don't get home until 8pm from church stuff.

*Don't hold me accountable to this schedule, as it might change next week. Ya never know.