I can't believe how bad I've gotten about updating this blog :(
I really do want to keep a record of everything happening with our baby's first months, but they are flying by!! I can't believe she is already almost 8 months old. She definitely acts older than her age- she doesn't even seem like a baby anymore. As much as I loved my tiny baby, she is so much more fun to watch and play with now! Nobody can believe how much personality she has, and how happy she is (almost) all the time. She has the best expressions- it is hilarious to just watch her. She is such an adventurous little girl- she crawls so fast and goes room to room looking for things to explore. She wants to grab and feel everything she sees, and she flips things over and back and forth between her hands, and looks at every little part.
Standing...almost on her own already!?
When she isn't exploring, our baby is doing everything she can to learn to walk!! She spends a lot of time every day standing, using anything and everything in her reach. She doesn't need any assistance getting up or supporting herself, but she still hasn't mastered balance. She likes to stand against walls (especially of her pack-n-play or crib) and practice letting go. It's amazing watching her get her balance, and then slowly pull her hand back. Sometimes it takes a few attempts, she'll put her hand back on the wall after a second to regain her balance, and sometimes she'll stand with just a finger supporting her for a while, and then she lets go and stands there on her own! It is terrifying but so much fun to watch her face look so excited and proud. She is standing longer and longer each time. Luckily she doesn't do this much outside of the crib and pack-and-play, unless we are right there and she knows we'll catch her. She is also very good at falling on her behind and avoiding head bumps. A while back I went to a parent-teacher conference at her daycare, and they told me they expect her to be walking by Christmas. Back then I thought they were crazy, but now I'm seeing that it is actually a possibility. I don't think we are ready for that!!
Talking!! (well, babbling...)
Baby Beaver is doing pretty well in other areas as well. We finally have the joy of listening to her babble... and babble and babble and babble on and on. I was so anxious for her to start practicing consonants and was so excited to hear her first "dada" sounds (no "mama" yet), but now it seems I never have to go more than a few minutes! I love imagining what she is saying and having conversations with her. Mr. Beaver loves hearing her yelling for him ;). It is fun!
Eating... not being fed
The only skills our baby doesn't seem to be in any rush to master are eating skills... or at least that's what we thought. The first time we offered food (rice cereal), she was excited, eagerly swallowing spoonfuls and even grabbing the spoon and feeding herself a bite! After that, however, she did not have much interest, and pretty much refused to eat anything we tried to feed her (and we tried a lot- every single day). After more than a month of this, our doctor referred us to a food specialist- but I thought this was a little ridiculous (and we never went). She had eaten before, she has no issue with gaining weight, and she is interested in our food, just not in being fed baby food. So I took another approach... we started giving her table food to munch on, which I guess is called "baby led weaning".
I did not do much research into baby led weaning, but I read enough to feel confident that it is safe to give our baby healthy food without pureeing it, as long as we are right there carefully watching. She loves it! We haven't been at it for long, but so far she seems to really enjoy large slices of yellow carrot, avocado slice (with peel still on- otherwise she has no chance holding it), baked sweet-potato slices and sticks, chunky mashed butternut squash or slices of it, and her two absolute favorites- turkey and broccoli. She LOVED the turkey we deep fried for Thanksgiving... we give her a large piece, and she just holds it and sucks on it, kinda chewing small pieces of. With the broccoli, the floret part goes in her mouth and comes out missing all of the little bud pieces! It is fun to watch her figure out how to eat, and I really love sitting together having family dinner, with her eating some of the same foods we have and feeding herself.
Favorite things!
Our daughter has many favorite things, but just to mention a few for my own sake of remembering down the road...
Comfort item: a hand-made blanket. A friend of my mom had it made for our baby shower, so it is a pretty tan and brown pattern to be gender neutral. It's small -- a great size for cuddling with while we rock her to sleep or in the crib.
Toy: our Imaginarium Puzzle cube is played with the most- but this is like 6+ toys in one... and she can use it to stand up and scoot around on her feet. To narrow it down, the magnetic shapes on this toy are her favorite. She loves pulling them off and chewing them, banging them on stuff, and just crawling around holding them.
Play activity: crawling around outside and playing with grass and leaves. Unfortunately it is now waaay too cold for this, so we're going to have to find a fun alternative.
Thing we do: she LOVES when we count to three when doing anything... picking her up, bouncing her in the air, clipping her nails... it doesn't matter!
Routine activity: bath time is by far a regular, favorite part of the day. We use it to get some energy out before bedtime, and it works! She is great in the tub. She usually just sits and scoots around that way, but maybe once each night she crawls around a little bit. Unfortunately she has started standing in the tub, which we are working on stopping. We give her one warning ("No standing in the tub, or bath time will be over") and turn her a different direction with a toy distraction, but typically bath time ends after about 15 min because we can't keep her from standing any more.
Book: This is a toss-up... she loves Dr. Seuss's A B Cs, but at bed time it's between one of the "Goodnight" books... either Goodnight Moon or Goodnight San Fransisco. My favorite is Guess How Much I Love You :)
Food: I'm gonna say Turkey.
Song: Anything we sing! She seems to like when I change words to songs to include her name, or make up songs about her.
I'm sure there are many other things that I could think of favorites for... she is such a happy baby she seems to love everything!
And finally, to make this post just a little bit longer, the survey I haven't done in so long:
Age: 34 weeks now!
Stats/Size: She's wearing 6-9 month clothes, 9 month clothes, 6-12 month clothes, and even some 12-month pants and 9-12 month clothes. Not sure about weight/length, but I'd guess around 18.5 lbs?
Sleep: Still waking once a night, sometimes twice. Naps are harder to begin, but once she's asleep she's out for a good amount of time... usually closer to two hours than one! She sometimes even hangs out playing in the crib for a while after waking and I don't even notice she's up :)
Eat: I went into a lot of detail above, that about covers it.
Getting Around: Also see above!
New People: She already met Santa, twice! Once when we went to get pictures with him for our Christmas card, and then another when he just happened to be out while we were shopping.
Best moment this week: Hmm... well since I haven't done this in a while, I'd say a few weeks ago it was hearing Dada... I know she isn't actually referring to Mr. Beaver but it's still great to hear. Last week it was Riley's first Thanksgiving and then getting our Christmas tree up and decorated (we do it the day after Thanksgiving). This past week, I guess seeing Santa and the huge smiles that came with it.
Worst moment this week: .Thursday night, we had a two-hour wakeup (3-5) when I had to get up at 6 for work :( Not fun!
What I miss: sleeping in! Every now and then drinking alcohol... especially when my mother-in-law visits ;)
What I am looking forward to: My girls-weekend in less than a week!! They are awesome and coming here so I don't have to leave or travel with the baby alone. It is always a great time! Hopefully we don't get a blizzard this time. Oh, and related to this, seeing my friend for the first time since she has gotten pregnant! Soon our baby will have a new friend!
Weekly Wisdom: hmm... I guess maybe to be open-minded about things like eating. I never really considered skipping baby food, but it seems like that might make the most sense for our situation.
Stay tuned for pictures! I think this post is long enough on it's own :)
Of course nothing terrible is wrong- she has some kind of stomach bug, which will hopefully pass quickly... I knew this but had to be sure. Luckily she never had a fever, and still hasn't gotten sick again since this morning, but I still feel so sad for her!! I hope this is not something we have to deal with again any time soon. For now, I'm trying to keep her comfy as she sleeps (almost all day now).
Of course nothing terrible is wrong- she has some kind of stomach bug, which will hopefully pass quickly... I knew this but had to be sure. Luckily she never had a fever, and still hasn't gotten sick again since this morning, but I still feel so sad for her!! I hope this is not something we have to deal with again any time soon. For now, I'm trying to keep her comfy as she sleeps (almost all day now).
