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At the end of my Lenten season of fewer blog posts, I sloppily drafted out the things I'd been randomly jotting down for the last two months... things that I didn't want to forget about my daughter as she is in this oh-so-precious stage of wonder and sweetness...before she grows even bigger...
7 months
Three days of complete misery produced her first two teeth, on the bottom. They came together, and now they are fully visible in every photo of her smiling.
Is she trying to look under the table? Reach the dogs? Do a dance move? No it's her silly body tilt move. I wish I could snap a photo of it but it's just too quick! Torso movement seemed to be a theme at 7 months as she also slept in twisted positions and finally learned to roll from her back to her front.
She started sleeping through the night. I repeat... she started sleeping through the night (queue hallelujah chorus)! The first few nights that she was in her own room, Dan and I slept in the guest room right next door. She still often wakes up once or twice in the night, but goes back to sleep on her own.
Nursing her was a real treat: we had bubble blowing, humming, and her deciding when she wanted to switch sides and letting me know by unlatching then looking at the other one, grunting.
We had many pleasurable dinner outings that month and I now immediately ask for a few spoons when we first sit down at a restaurant. She loved eating foods that I made: butternut squash and sweet potato. She hates oatmeal but we still give it to her to see the hilarious faces she makes.
8 months
She has little interest in crawling other than the fact that it gets her from A to B, she is much more enthusiastic about pulling herself up to a standing position so she can experience the world like a big girl.
No more fuzz-hawk 'do. Her hair has grown longer and now lays flat on her head, except for the one sprout in the back. Her cheeks and thighs are delightfully chunky and she weighs 16 pounds.
She eats like a boss. In the regular meal rotation she has apple, banana, pear, potatoes, carrots, squash; and she's also tasted cottage cheese, apple sauce with cinnamon, one small bite of frozen yogurt, guacamole, tortilla, pizza crust, the hard heel of french bread, Cheerios, and other bites of whatever mom and dad are eating.
The laughing and babbling has evolved a bit to more "baby talk" and less moans and grunts. She is a very happy little kid. She cries when she needs to eat or sleep, and when she is confined and wants to move or when she hurts herself... but that's about it for fussing. She might be starting to wave "hi" on purpose, or it might always be a coincidental arm movement.
She plays by herself a little bit every day. She does really well on days I work from home, tumbling around on her play quilt with various toys on the floor in our office.
She loves three beings above the rest: Elmo, our dog Apollo, and her daddy. She loves me a lot too... preferring me to others when she is a little sleepy or in a new place. I don't want to encourage separation anxiety so I make an effort to be sure she's passed around even when I'm in the room... but I secretly like it when she just wants her mama.
She wore shoes for the first time on March 15th and didn't seem to mind, although they were huge on her (size 3, a baby shower gift). She played in the base grass for the first time this month too.
Some accidental favorite toys: Harkins Movie cups, water bottles, and paper. She is also obsessed with our cell phones, although she is not allowed to have them.
Dan or I read her books every night in our guest room next to the nursery, which has perfect soft lighting and no distractions to get her mentally prepared for bedtime. Sometimes she grabs at the pages or squirms, but usually she is a pretty captive little audience for book reading. This is always one of my favorite parts of our day.
She's this little tiny person, and she's amazing.
