It's great to be eight. Eight months, that is! Larkin has been hanging out in her eight-monthness for almost three weeks now, and I'm only now managing to get a blog post written. Somehow life has gotten VERRRY full and busy and time is a rare commodity.
But never fear- though I am late to the post, the photos were more or
less taken on time, and since I hang out with this baby all day every
day, I am pretty in tune with all the eight-monthness she has to offer.
So without further delay, here are some fun details about our girl at eight months old:
1. First please allow me a minute to tell you about one thing in her seventh month that I forgot to write down, and now that it is disappearing, I am afraid I'll forget it. From mid-six months old til about now, she has had this sweet, odd quirk with rolling her wrists... she looks like a music conductor as she twists and rolls her hands and wrists, mindlessly repeating the motion as she takes in all the big world around her. I have been charmed, worried, perplexed by it.... It's sweet, but what if it's a developmental issue? Luckily, a couple of people I trust, who have expertise in those sorts of behaviors, have reassured me it's nothing to worry about. So since being put at ease, I've just observed her as she does it, and I think it's just a kinesthetic motion she's doing as she's contemplating grabbing things, pondering what something might feel like, or when she's not within reach of something but is seeing it and hoping she can get to it soon. Both wrists rolling at the same time, a graceful little movement of her hands as she watches things unfolding around her.
2. But onward to more recent things: Our girl, crazy as it is to me, still does not have any teeth. Every one of her siblings cut their first teeth in their seventh month. Not our girl Larkin! She demonstrates signs of active teething a lot, but nothing has broken through.
3. On the flip side, she has been advancing in her gross motor skills a month or so AHEAD of her three siblings. Her army crawl is serious business and she can get all over the place. She also has begun pulling to standing, mostly just at the tv armoire. She is so proud of herself! It's funny to see her standing like that because she still seems so tiny.
4. But she's not really SUPER tiny-- she is wearing the end of her 3-6mo clothes and is very comfortably fitting into the 6-9mo/6-12 month set of clothes. She is in a size 3 diaper, and takes a 6oz bottle for feedings. I've not tried shoes on her in ages, since the ridiculousness of trying to keep infant shoes on a wiggly newer baby... so I don't know if she's in a size 3 or 4 yet.
5. She LOVES food, and loves feeding herself. Throughout her eighth month, I've been giving her more and more "finger food" to try and she adores it. She loves MumMums and puffs, plain pancakes, bananas, cheese pizza, peas, carrot cubes, corn, pretzels, among a few other things. She's getting good at learning how to suck the baby food pouches herself, without me needing to squeeze them to get her to taste them. We still spoon-feed her dishes of baby food, but less and less.
6. Larkin LOVES Fiona. She squeals with delight when she gets near her, and she will army crawl so quickly to try to get ahold of her. I have to keep a close eye on that situation so that Fiona doesn't lash out in self-defense.
7. She still takes two great naps a day. The first one usually starts between 8:45-9, and can be anywhere from 2-3 hours! The second nap is usually around 2:00 or 2:30, and it's about 2.5 hours, usually. It's pretty sweet.
8. Her nighttime sleep is fine... she still wakes once, usually, but it's manageable. She's usually in bed by 7 or 7:30pm, wakes once between midnight and 6am for a 3 or 4 oz. bottle, then sleeps til either 6:30 or 7am. Joe and I trade off nights for that middle-of-the-night feeding.
9. She loves to roll around her crib and jabber, both before naps and once she wakes. She has 5 "friends" in her crib: Her fox lovey, a flamingo lovey, a white IKEA mouse, a fox "wubbanub" binky critter, and a jingly crocodile. She plays with all of them, though she doesn't use the binkie part of the wubbanub.
10. She is enchanted with her daddy. Her whole body lights up when he gets home from work, and she practically launches out of my arms to get to him. It's so cute!
11. Her hair is growing, and she has some curl to it. So cute! When she gets out of her nightly bath, all it takes is a quick finger-curl to her bangs and that curl on her forehead stays there til her next bath. So endearing!
12. She loves being outside, and loves sitting on the hammock with me. Hammock time is still one of my favorite times with my girl.
13. She loves to get herself in tight places, under furniture, behind doors, etc. and she is already really into taking DVDs off of the shelf methodically, one at a time.
14. She says "dadadadada" and "mum mum mum mum" a lot, and can really make herself heard when she wants to keep up with the rest of her loud family. She jabbers at TOP volume and it is truly hard to talk above it.
15. She's also a bit restless and discontent a lot... I really think she just knows everyone is older than her and more able to DO THINGS, and she is just itching to get there herself. The new mobility is a blessing and a curse this way. But it could also very well be that it's the slow, persistent teething, with no end in sight.
16. My favorite things with her are wearing her in my ring sling, snuggling her when I bottle-feed her in her rocking chair, kissing her cheeks and making her laugh from the kisses (she's so ticklish!), kissing her head and rubbing my face in her soft hair, and watching her smile at other people-- especially at her daddy and strangers at stores. She is a joy to everyone around her, and we're so lucky to have her in our family.
(See that mild discontent? This is pretty common for her. Good thing she's still cute...But I sure grieve that she seems to have skipped that beautiful phase between 7 months old and 10 or so months old, when all is well with the world and baby doesn't need to be moving from point A to B, and they sit on a blanket with a bunch of toys and just smile and love life. Not this girl. She already wants MORE out of life. Go, Larkin!)
Oh, and one more thing: I have a feeling these eight-month photos will be the last ones she stays laying on her back. I was able to get Lucy and Quinn to 11 months before they rolled away from me... But this was how Larkin finished our photos this time. So.... I think sitting up photos from here on out. Ha!
Quinn may have the best laugh but She she has the best smile
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