8 Months!!

I have several other posts that need to be added, but first I had to get to this one...our little baby girl is 8 months old now! And we have had quite a milestone month! Her weight gain has slowed considerably now. She is still only 17 1/2 pounds (weighed before her first meal of the day). This month she also had her very first sickness...a cold and a cough...which she had to have antibiotics for. She kicked it for a while, but her runny nose seems to be back now. I'm wondering if it isn't contagious and possibly just allergies? Hard to tell. Here are some other milestones that she had this month:

• Started eating more solids. She especially likes squash, yogurt and cheerios!

• She's nursing 4 times a day and eating solids 3 times a day. Just this past week she increased her solid intake to approx 5-6 oz per meal.

• She's pulling to a stand now and actually ONLY wants to be standing

• She's getting FAST at "getting" the cat...we have to save him constantly now!

• She's still sleeping her 12 hour nights and has two 2-hour naps during the day

• She's started "drinking" with a sippy cup. We're not really consistant at giving it to her, but when she gets it, she's pretty good at getting water out if she wants it. Other times she just likes to bite the mouth piece.

• Speaking of biting...the girl now has 5 teeth and one on the way!

• Still learning to feed herself. We've been practicing with Cheerios. She CAN feed herself, but I don't think she's that interested yet.

• She LOVES to dance!! The Barts let us borrow their Fisher Price piano and Claire LOVES to stand up at the piano and dance to the music. She also likes to dance when there is no music playing. :)

• She definitely knows the word "No" now and will visibly stop doing something (when she feels like it) if we tell her no...amazing they learn at such a young age!

• She LOVES to be outside and LOVES the wind to blow in her face. In fact, she laughs when the wind blows in her face.

• Speaking of laughing...she is laughing out loud more and more. It is such a sweet, sweet sound and I love to hear it!

• She LOVES animals!! As I mentioned before...she goes after Papa (the cat) any chance she gets. She also will "yell" out with excitement when she sees animals and has laughed out loud a number of times when we let her "pet" a dog. (We mostly don't trust animals around her yet since she is still at the 'grab a fistful of hair' phase...but we've trusted a few and she loves to pet them).

• She not only loves animals, but she loves children too. Just today we were at the grocery store and she saw another little girl riding in a shopping cart. Claire just started to smile at her. It is so, so sweet to see her filled with joy at seeing another person, even people that she does not know.

• She is (I'm afraid) at the beginning stages of separation anxiety. I'm still holding out hope that she will forego this dreaded stage that many children go through. However, just this last 2 weeks, if she's a little fussy and then she sees her mommy, then she will REALLY let everyone know that she's unhappy, unless Mom picks her up. We're trying not to encourage this behavior though...I will walk away sometimes when she's like this and let the other adult handle it (grandma/daddy/aunt), or I will even stay in the room while the other adult handles it. We'll see how it goes.

• She is REALLY babbling a lot now! She can sit and talk to her toys (easily) for an hour or longer. Poor Bradley...he really IS going to have 2 talkative women in his house...Ha ha ha...I don't think he minds though. He loves both of us to pieces. :)

I've said it a thousand times...it's a joy being a Mom of such a precious little girl! Bradley and I will often just sit in our living room and watch her play and talk to her toys. We love to watch her discover new things and it makes us so happy to see her light up with excitement. It's been a fast 8 months!