Here is L's 8 month letter. Better late than never, right?
In my experience this past week, when the baby gets a cold, the momma gets sick
twice and the daddy takes a week off of work and you throw 2 holidays in the mix (my birthday,
of course it's a holiday!, and labor day) you get a momma that feels very disorganized and out of sorts, a messy house, an empty fridge and no blog posts.
But I had a GREAT birthday (
I'll do a post later once I get the pictures from a friend) and we had a great Labor Day weekend. Most importantly, we had an
amazing week having M home with us. We took care of some errands and took a fun trip to the zoo. We lazed and grazed and we did
not do any of the DIY projects I had in mind.
But we soaked up our time with him. It's more often that we don't see him for a week so it was so nice to
have him for a week.
I'm trying to get myself on the right path for September. Back to eating right, making meal plans, organizing my day, my life. Getting Lia into routines (with a huge help from M). And, enjoying every moment of Fall and the holidays and Lia's last baby-hood days. I'll post more on that sort of subject later, once I get my head unjumbled and back to the usual day to day-ness.
Now, I know you are dying to hear all about L as an 8 month old! At the moment, she's sitting beside me, bouncing on her butt and screaming at me.
Okay, now that I have picked up the screaming babe, covered her in kisses, fed her breakfast and she's settled in the floor with Nick Jr, a slew of toys, and M's box of video games she prefers over her toys I'll get back to telling you all about our 8 month old.
Her 8 month checkup isn't until next week so we'll guess on the stats, again. She's at least 20 lbs.
This babe likes to eat! I've no idea on the height, but I know she's grown a couple inches. It's getting chilly (
on some days) here so I pulled out her bigger Fall/Winter clothes we stocked up on last year. Before she was born, Old Navy was having an extra 50% off clearance sale and things were
cheap. It's a good thing I bought them so cheap, she's outgrown some of them! I put a sweatshirt-type dress on her Saturday - it's really
too short.
I think just about everything has changed about L.
Except her beautiful smile and happy attitude. She is always getting into something and learning something new. Her new thing is to pull all of the baskets out of the coffee table and TV stand and empty the contents out. She's also grown attached to Toby's toys, especially the tennis ball. It's cute watching those two play with that tennis ball together.
Let's hope what they say about a dogs mouth being really clean is true.
We moved her mattress down a few weeks ago and she likes to wake us up by standing up and shaking the rails! She can pull herself up to stand. She'll take steps as long as she is holding on to something or someone. She is an amazing crawler. She's on the move and she follows me almost everywhere I go.
Even the bathroom.
She still loves bath time. As soon as she gets in her little tub and grabs a toy, she noms down on it and gives me the biggest grin. Her grin is about to get brighter, too. She's got two teeth cutting through. One has a tiny piece broken through the skin and the other is still cutting. She does great with teething, so far. I just didn't realize it took so long for a tooth to cut through.
She still hasn't said words besides the elusive "dada" we have yet to hear again, but she babbles. Alot. She loves to clap too. Yesterday, M and I were playing
Just Dance on the Wii. L sat in the floor clapping to the music! It was too cute.
If I wasn't too busy kicking M's butt in the game I would have recorded her!
And kids. She LOVES kids. If she spots a kid, her eyes sparkle and she breaks out that adorable smile of hers. I am hoping I can meet some moms with kids her age so she can play and socialize with them. She plays with my friends' kids but I want to see what she does with a baby her age.
Anyone live close enough to be interested?!
She's drinking 6 oz bottles, anywhere between every 3 - 4 1/2 hours. She's eating solids for breakfast and dinner, but I think I'm going to add a lunch soon. She gets a snack during the day, too. Yogurt, whole fruits, Puffs. She LOVES the Gerber Puffs and Yogurt Melts. She is learning to pick them up with her fingers, but they don't usually make them to her mouth yet. They get stuck on her fingers or she drops them and Toby comes around to eat them. I usually give them to her and she breaks out in another huge grin. We try working in more "table foods" so she can learn the different textures and figure out how to mash foods with her jaws. She recently tryed (
well, she sort of stole it from my friend) a peach. She went crazy over it. She shoved the halved peach in her mouth and went to town. She loves snacking on chunks of banannas too. I don't think we have found a food she doesn't like yet. She is doing good about eating her cereal in the mornings now and she'll even take green veggies at night with dinner!
As far as nap routines go, I bow down to M! Since he was home last week, he amazingly got L taking naps. In. Her. Crib! With me, when I put her down in her crib for a nap she stands up, shakes the rails and crys so hard she can't breath. She just won't settle down for me. She sees me more than anyone else and she's gotten to that clingy stage. She doesn't want me too far away from her unless she doesn't know I am around. Naps just weren't working for us.
Then, M comes and saves the day for us! She'll go down anywhere between 12 and 1:30 and sleep for at least an hour. Yesterday, I think it was like 2 - 2 1/2 hours. It is nice.
Nice to know that for at least an hour I have a quiet house. And, the more amazing thing is that she'll let me put her down. Knock on wood, because I don't want to ruin it but I rocked her while I watching the 12 o'clock news and put her down in her crib at 12:15.
She's still there! I know I am no good at it, but I love the idea of a nice day with a routine. It helps me stay on track of things and organized. I suck at it but I need it. I
need it to be a better mother and a better wife.
Heck, I need it to be a better me.
And, I think that sums her up. It's crazy how fast she grows, but I feel as if she was always at this stage. Do you other mamas feel that way sometimes? I feel like I have always been her mama and she has always been this crazy, silly, loves to laugh and clap little girl who has stolen my heart.
This is her "Mommy, I didn't do it face. Blame it on Toby!"
Toby isn't so sure about that!
