Thursday, March 19, 2009

8 Months

Caroline, today you are 8 months old. As usual, I am amazed at all of the fun things your are learning to do. You are such a happy baby and a joy. This month you are gaining a lot of physical skills. At the beginning of the month you were rolling over from your tummy to your back and then quite content to stay right there. Now you are rolling around the room to get from point A to point B. Along with that comes the ability to get to things that peak your curiosity. In these pictures, that was a basket of clean laundry.
You are also starting to pull up on things. In fact, we just lowered the crib mattress a level last night. You are not pulling all the way up to your feet, but only to your knees. This causes you some trouble as you often pull up and then start to slide. You don't know quite how to get back down safely. You have done a face plant a few times. You thought it was great fun to scooch over to the dishwasher to take a look. Luckily I had already removed all of the dishes.
I thought this picture was really funny. I have a friend that practices "EC" with her baby (that means Elimination Communication). I have toyed with the idea of trying it out. One day it was obvious that you were working on a dirty diaper so I hoped I was timing it right. You just got mad. You are getting into everything that is in reach. Katherine is at a point where we don't have to worry about baby proofing everything. We are about to have to redo that as I think you will be mobile and getting into everything very soon. One of your favorite things to do it to pull things out of boxes or baskets. You are often quite content to sit on the kitchen floor with a basket of Katherine's dishes and play food. In the office you like to pull papers out of boxes and mess up my piles. This was the result of just 2 minutes on the floor. One of your favorite things is a bag of ribbons that I found in my room at Nana's house. It is not a baby safe toy at all so we are very careful to only play with the ribbons when mommy is right there. You are doing well with eating. So far you have tried cereal, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrot, broccoli, peas, green beans, avocado, applesauce, bananas, yellow squash, yogurt, cottage cheese and puffs. This week I was going to start meats but after your ear infection you have not been eating more than a few bites at each meal. There are a lot more foods that I need to introduce but with making most of the baby food it is not as easy as buying jars. This week you have not wanted to eat at all. Last night you screamed when I tried to feed you with a spoon. You were excited about your puffs though. So, I put bananas and peas on your tray. You had fun trying to pick them up and about half of them made it to your mouth. Maybe you just wanted to feed yourself. I keep forgetting to give you a sippy cup. We have tried it a few times and you are not really a fan of water at all. You make a silly face. You do like to chew on it though. You now have 2 teeth that are very hard to photograph. I assume you are working on some more because you chew on everything and have a constant string of drool. Your sleeping habits have rapidly deteriorated. The combination of a double ear infection, teething and learning to sit and crawl have really taken their toll. You do down with no problems but usually about 11-12 you wake up. You are wide awake and happy if we want to play but if we put you back in bed you scream. I hate letting you cry it out at any time but especially when I know you are hurting.
Now that you are starting to crawl and pull up you often get yourself stuck in your crib. I hate to admit but you usually end up sleeping with mommy and daddy because that is the only way for all 4 of us to get to sleep. I do love snuggling up while you sleep and luckily you do not try to nurse all night long. I would enjoy it a lot more if we had a king size bed. I know it is a bad habit and you have us around your little finger. I have also allowed a bad nap habit to form. For your afternoon nap I usually nurse you to sleep on my bed. I try to get you and Katherine to sleep at the same time in the afternoon and I just don't want to deal with the possibility of you crying to sleep and waking her up. I think that we will have to bite the bullet this week though since you will soon be trying to crawl off the bed.
Speaking of crawling, you are not quite there but you are so close. You go from sitting to all fours, reaching different directions so that it seems that you are crawling. You can get across the room by scooching on your bottom, rolling around and reaching as you change how you are sitting but you are not officially crawling yet. Watch out though, it is close. You continue to absolutely adore your sister. As you get bigger, she enjoys playing with you even more. You all smile and laugh, hug and cuddle. I love watching you all interact.

Caroline, we love you so much. I just want to snuggle and play and kiss you all day long!

1 comment:

Tara said...

She's such a cutie pie and your posts are great, Christy! Very detailed!!