6 to 9 months

Beginning of 7 months: the cycle of sickness with fevers and cold continues.
April brings in better weather and more activity outside. Boston winters are just so brutal and long.

April 28th: Laura and I go to a get together at a bar (yes a bar) for a coworker who is leaving. Laura tries lemons for the first time and she is hooked.

May 6th: My cousin came down from Toronto to visit Laura for the first time. They are kindred spirits since they were both born on the same day. We don't do much since the weather is cold and rainy. We window shopped at Burlington Mall and I got a large tub of Legal's Seafood clam chowder which my cuz chowed down on.

May 12th: Family trip to NYC. Drive down but leave in the evening at 8pm so Laura slept the whole way down. We stayed at the Iroquois hotel which was pricey and the room was the size of our bathroom. Very small. Laura woke up once we got to the hotel and we had a tough time getting her down since she was not familiar with her surroundings.
We went to the MOMA the next day which was fun.
On Saturday, met up with my sis for some shopping. Dropped off the child with her. My hubby and I met up with some friends and went out! Went to a jazz club (which was already over by the time we got there), had pizza and ended up at "W" for drinks.
Left for Boston at noon on Sunday.

May 21st. (Saturday) Laura and I with a friend and her 2 year old go to the NE aquarium. It's a cold rainy day and we are not appropriately dressed. Laura's not that interested (at this stage of her development) in the penguins or the fish. I also see how incredibly rude people in NE really are. Here we are, 2 women with 2 strollers trying to go to the bathroom and no one, I mean NO ONE, helps with the door. MANY people are seeing us struggle and essentially pass by without even a glance and women are walking through the door, THROUGH THE DOOR, without helping us.
Afterwards, we stop at Legals and it's packed. We end up going to a small cafe near my home (Italian) for dinner with our 2 small children. It was complete chaos with broken dishes and all. We paid and left a large tip and walked out with our heads bowed.

It's hard to remember her eating pattern. Early on, she was very finicky. I tried pureeing a lot of different stuff, tried the store bought jar stuff but she didn't really like that either. There was about a month sometime around this age where she wasn't eating that much and looking rather thin. However, once she started real food, this girl showed us that she could EAT. Unfortunately, her teeth weren't cooperating since she didn't even break in a tooth until 11 months! Oops, I'm jumping ahead.

June 10th: My good friend from CA came to visit for the weekend.

June 12th: Laura says "MAMA"!

June 13th: Laura is now able to stand herself up in the crib and putting her down to sleep is now a problem. She just stands at the crib with her little fingers clutching the bars like a caged animal shrieking. We endure this for several days but my heart couldn't take it. I'm so weak. So, I started to put her in our bed until she falls asleep, then pick her up and put her in the crib.

June 25th: Trip to Martha's vineyard with friends (the one with the 2 y.o.) sans my hubby who was working. Nice daytrip. Again, didn't dress appropriately since I figured it's the summer and it would be hot but the ferry ride was chilly b/c of the constant wind. We walked around and went to a small beach, rode the ferris wheel. On our return, we missed the ferry (b/c it leaves at a different site!) so we ended up getting on the last ferry home (9pm) andI didn't get home till midnight! It was freezing by then but the girls were knocked out. Overall good trip.

July 3rd: Take a day trip with a friend of mine to Rowley to a huge flea market. I bought a small adorable toddler rocking chair. Stop off at the Clam Box in Ipswich for clam strips. YUM. Laura would rather have the french fries!

July 7th: Hubby's close family friends arrive and stay with us for5 days for their son's wedding (July 9th). It's wonderful having them stay with us. We don't see much of them b/c they are so busy with the wedding but it's still a blessing to have them with us for for that duration.

The wedding was nice and Laura was a doll the whole time. So well behaved. There was some drama right after the ceremony. We went to the reception for a few hours and went home early to put Laura to bed.

July 13th: Laura starts crawling. Initially, I was trying to show her how to crawl by going on all fours and crawling. However, Laura decided that that was not how she was going to do it. She scooted instead. We figured she would grow out of this but from this time to the time she started standing, she would sit on her behind, her scoot along. It was very cute. Only one side of her pants would wear down.