Eight months!

Happy eight month birthday, Maya!  We are so proud to see how far you’ve come!  Husband marvels daily how he can’t believe Maya was an “uncoordinated lump” just a few short months ago :)  Oh, and how cute she is :)

This is again going to be a fast post because a) the baby is fussy and b) I have a mountain of unanswered email that needs to be attended to NOW.  But here’s a quick synopsis of Maya at eight months!

My favorite new observation is that she’s starting to get her “little girl” hair, which is growing in much thicker and longer.  I just love it, it’s so beautiful!  Husband was super white blonde from a really early age, but her hair color looks almost exactly like mine when I was her age.  My guess is that she’s going to end up with dark (and curly!) hair like me.  I can’t wait to do braids!

Temperament-wise, she’s still bubbly, fun, and outgoing.  She’s also still very particular about things and easily frustrated.  She’s really begun to try to communicate with us (and Abby) through a series of grunts, with different lengths and inflections depending on what she wants.  We keep drilling signs, though, because she should be capable of those long before speech - and she REALLY wants us to understand what she wants.

The best new skill development happened yesterday, in which she got herself into a sitting position from laying on her belly!  She sort of army crawled backwards until her legs were spread out to each side in the splits, and then walked her hands back to push to a sit.  Husband and I were both there to watch it, and we were both very proud :)   As you saw from the video the other day, she’s getting close to pulling herself to standing, and her favorite place to practice is using the bars of her crib.  We’re trying to teach her how to fall on her butt instead of her head, but I went rushing upstairs yesterday after hearing an ungodly level of screaming from her crib as she was rolling around while waking up from her morning nap (it’s her favorite time to poop, so I try to give her some alone time for it), so it may not have completely taken yet.  Also, the extra tummy time seems to be helping her get closer to crawling.  She can make it to hands and knees, then splats onto her belly :)  She has mastered both waving and clapping, and she continues to dazzle us with lots and lots of new sound combinations (often at high volume - we spend a lot of time outside).  She’s also started giving big, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses :)

In the sleep department, we were doing great until teething/biting/bad nursing began again, essentially sleeping 9pm to 5am (and all of that in her crib!!).  Right now, she makes it from 9 to midnight, and then I bring her into bed with us so that we can all get some more sleep...although she does tend to kick us a lot :)  But one thing I LOVE about it: waking up with her in the morning :)

A few current favs:

Favorite toy: believe it or not, she has rediscovered (and loves!) pacifiers.  Not to suck, mind you, but solely to chew on - her new favorite teething toy!  We do have to watch them like a hawk to make sure they’re not ripping/breaking in any way with her violent treatment of them.

Favorite song: most definitely Baby Beluga.  She even just hears the little whale noises at the beginning before the music begins and goes absolutely crazy :)  We listen to a lot of Raffi up in this joint.

Favorite zoo animal: penguins.  We brought her to the zoo for the first time this month, and she was definitely a little young for it.  For example, things like bison and camels were literally invisible to her unless they were moving (which they weren’t, really).  But the swimming penguins?  OMG, she was enthralled!

Favorite body part: she’s fascinated by eyes!  She likes to explore ours by trying to touch (i.e., poke) them over and over again :)

We are, indeed, savoring the final week before day care (“school!”) begins.  We’re trying to squeeze in all the great activities of summer this week, from swimming to harvesting tomatoes from the garden to cloud watching to camping!  We are headed on a short trip to Lake Superior tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited.  It will be quite the adventure :)  In other good news, I started running again, which I literally hadn’t done since March 2013.  I am wickedly out of shape and so, so slow (especially pushing a jogging stroller!), but I missed it a lot while pregnant and I’m happy to be out and sweating again :)  The baby loves the jogging stroller, so it’s a great activity for any fussy afternoon.

The next couple weeks are going to be insane, so I might not get a chance to post much.  Then, Maya and I are headed to CA again for a trip to the eastern Sierra with my family, so if all else fails, I’ll post some cute “mountain baby” photos for her nine month update.  In the meantime, we’re sending you happy thoughts of sunshine, homemade pesto, and marigolds!

Jogging baby!