Eight Months is Awesome

My Precious Girl,
Today you turn eight months old. I know I keep saying that you are so close to crawling, but apparently you are taking your sweet time. You did get promoted to the "Crawlers" room at church since you could scoot yourself off the carpet in the baby nursery. That's their rule, so you got the boot. I was a little worried that you might get run over by the more mobile kids, but you survived. The only bad part of the day was that you didn't want to take a nap all morning and miss out on watching all the other kids, and then about 15 minutes before we came to get you, you crashed in a swing. Unfortunately, we tried to test your limits by taking you to lunch and it was disastrous. Not even Ainslee and Cara could distract you from the fact that you were bored (had already eaten, so nothing to do in your highchair) and worn out. We finally came home and all took a 3 hour nap in Mommy and Daddy's bed. You are just like Daddy, cuddling up to my side until I was almost falling into the floor. Daddy said we should all sleep together more often because he has never gotten that much room!

You are trying a few new foods but still sticking with jarred baby food most of the time. The other day, I bit a green grape in half and thought you might like to suck on it a bit. You loved it and gummed it down a bit. I was trying to be careful and not let you actually bite any of it off. There were a few times when it looked like a piece of grape was missing, but I checked your mouth and didn't see anything. I proudly announced to Daddy that you had "eaten" some grapes and he seemed surprised... I told him not to worry, that you hadn't actually bitten any off. So we go to take your bath later and you are happily playing with your toys and sitting up. All of a sudden, you spit out this dime-sized piece of grape! You had been hiding it somewhere, but apparently never tried to swallow! Mommy has learned to stick with the mesh thingy for real foods.

Sometimes I think we try to rush you along to the next phase, and other times we miss you being a tiny baby. Just the other day, I was trying to cuddle up close to you, and you managed to punch a hand right into the middle of my throat, and I thought, man I miss the younger you! But on the days when you laugh and play with Daddy and are so active, I think that it will be so wonderful when you can talk and hug us and be a big girl.

Eight months have flown by. In fact, your third tooth came poking through on the top on Saturday. It is not one of your front teeth, it is off to the left side. Isn't that funny? Before you know it, you will be celebrating your pre-Halloween birthday! Is it too much that I was already thinking about your party today? Let's take it one month at a time, shall we?

Mama loves you!