8 Months Old!

All about my 8 month old:

* Measurements- According to my calculations, Leah is up to 18 lbs. and is about 29.5 inches long. She is flying through 6-9 month sized clothes!

* Sleeping- She is now pretty consistently sleeping 11-12 hours a night. She goes down between 7:30 & 8:30 and almost always wakes up around 7am. (Now I just need to start getting up earlier than 7 so I can get ready before she is up & at 'em.) Her naps, though usually around the same times every day (10am, 2pm), usually vary in length. The morning is rarely longer than an hour. Afternoon can sometimes be 45 min. (and when this happens she is ready to go to bed by 6) or 2 1/2 hours. I have yet to figure out how to make them consistently longer!

* Eating- She is now down to about 4 bottles a day, 6 oz. each, with an occasional ounce or two after a meal. I am only pumping 3 times a day now, and one afternoon feeding is formula, which she seems to be taking to just fine. She eats solids 3 times a day, and is a very good eater. She'll eat pretty much anything. A lot of times it seems like she doesn't like the foods I've prepared at home, but I'm still working on figuring out how to make them more like her store-bought food. This month she's tried: avocado, mango, corn, broccoli, macaroni & cheese, potatoes, yogurt, blueberries, and strawberries.

- For fun, I've tried to give her some Cheerios to play around with. She can pick them up, but usually they get stuck to the inside of her palm and stay there. She doesn't quite seem to get yet that she can eat them, even though everything else in her hands goes to the mouth! I have also given her a teething biscuit (Brett says it makes him think of dog biscuits), and she loved that, although it is very messy! I've also given her a taste of a frozen fruit "popsicle" that I was eating, and she couldn't get enough of it. She cried when it was gone! She likes to try anything that big people are doing and reaches out for a water bottle if I'm drinking and tries to drink from it herself.

















* Milestones- As I mentioned in the last post, the past two weeks it seems Leah has grown in leaps & bounds. Everything seems to be happening all at once-- waving, clapping, "crawling," and yammering-- it's just another reminder of how quickly she is growing up! I have already begun childproofing the house as I never know what she's going to get into next. She has already: 1) pulled a book off the bookshelf... 2) put a plant leaf in her mouth, and also tried to eat grass... 3) headed for the electrical outlet...






Exhibit A: Trying to eat grass...








* Personality- Oh how mischeivous my little girl is! It's interesting to note how she seems to know what things she's not supposed to be getting into. She'll go towards something she's not supposed to touch, start giggling a little, look at me, and then go ahead & touch it. (Reminds me every day that we are all born sinners in need of a Savior.) She's very busy, always moving, and it's getting harder to put her in one place & know she'll stay there! She's starting to get fussier when I leave the room, but she's not yet like that with strangers-- she'll still go to anyone as long as she can see me.

- She also loves peekaboo. My favorite is when she'll get behind a piece of furniture, or something, and peeeek around the corner to see me. Many times when I go in to her room to get her in the morning, she'll be pulling down on the crib bumper, on her tummy, looking to see me & giggling.















- She loves to be sung to. It always calms her down and she stares at whoever is singing. For some reason she hates to have a shirt put on so I usually sing to her while it's going on to take her mind off it. She also loves it when you clap or whistle in front of her.

She definately keeps us busy!! We haven't done too much else as a family recently, just life as usual. Looking forward to a few fun summer months ahead!

The 8-month bear pictures didn't turn out quite right. The digital camera is broken, so I'm using Brett's 35mm. I've taken some more but we'll have to wait till I use the rest of the roll of film to post them. For now, here's some to hold you over!

Fastest Growing Baby Ever

I was going to include all this stuff in Leah's 8-month old post this Wed., but seriously, this baby has done some major growing in what seems like a really short amount of time.

In the past 3 days, she has started really taking off in her crawling. She does a sort of army crawl using her hands and her belly. She's starting to get her knees off the floor, too, but still can't coordinate them to alternate with her arms. If she sees a toy just out of her reach, she can scoot herself toward it. It's even neater to watch on our hardwood floors-- she is now all over the place, and using more than just her rolling technique!



















She also has learned to wave bye-bye. Well, we're not really sure if she understands that is what she is doing, but there have been 2 or 3 times when she has used it in an appropriate situation. When Brett comes home from work, I take her to the door to see him and she starts waving her hands. If you prompt her enough ("Say bye bye, Leah!"), she will wave. But, then she has always liked moving her hands around in the air, and now she is doing it all the time.





















She also started clapping. Again, not sure if she really knows the appropriate time to do it, but we make sure to say, "Yay!" every time she does it so she will eventually figure it out. Now that she knows she can make noise by putting her hands together, she wants to do that all the time!


AND... And she's started talking a lot more. Using some consonants, even. It sounds like "dadadadada" or "yayayayayaya" but sounds much more like words than the screaming she used to do. She delights in seeing her toys, and will get a huge smile on her face when she sees something she likes (or something she knows she's not supposed to be getting into) and then start "talking" to it.



I knew it would all happen eventually, but, really? Couldn't she just slow down a little. I can't keep up!












Seriously, could this baby be any cuter?

Easter Week- in Pictures

Snapshots of the past week:

Last Tuesday, a certain 7-month old decided she could sit up on her own for longer than 10 seconds! She still prefers her belly, but she can do it. It's much easier to just sit her in the shopping cart at the store, or in the high chair at the restaurant, and now we're one step closer!






















Since then, she's only gotten more active. Now she can inch her way across the floor on her belly, reaching out to get toys just out of reach. She turns her whole body around using her hands and her belly. I'm expecting this to all lead to crawling any day now!





























Easter weekend had a couple nice days before it got really cold. Leah's Nana sent her a cute Easter dress. And Leah loved playing with empty Easter eggs.




















Saturday we went out to Pullen Park. I remember going there as a kid and have a lot of photos of me there when I was little. We got some of Leah in the flowers, and we got to ride the train, and check out the caboose.













































Leah also got to meet the Easter Bunny Saturday. Well, a creepy Walmart version of the Easter bunny. He would have given me nightmares if I was her size. She, however, loved his beard!





















Sunday we had a good service at church to celebrate our risen Savior. We spent the rest of the day enjoying a nice dinner with our friends Ben & Sarah, including playing some games, and then just relaxed the rest of the day!

Big Girl Bath

Sat. night we ditched the baby bathtub (which I never really liked much anyway) for the big tub. Leah kept trying to sit up while she was in the old tub, and she sits fairly well now anyway, so I figured why not go ahead and move her up?? She liked being able to splash better and got to play with more toys. Of course, her favorite will always be trying to catch the water as it comes out of the little bucket we have to rinse her hair.

(Photos added 5-10-09)

Homemade Baby Foods

A couple people have been asking me about making my own baby food, so I thought I would make a post about it. I never thought I would be the mom that would be "cheap" enough to make her own baby food, but really, I realized that it's almost silly to buy a $0.75 jar of banana baby food when you can buy a whole pound of fresh bananas for just as much, and with very little preparation you can serve it to the baby. Right now I'm really only doing fruits, because the few veggies I've prepared, I've had a hard time pureeing to the right texture, and I'm not brave enough to try meats. So I'm still buying a lot of jarred food, just not all of it.

The rule of thumb for pretty much all fruits/ veggies is to peel them, remove any seeds or pits, steam them (until they're soft, about 10-15 min., usually) and puree them in the food processor, adding water or milk as necessary. Then you can freeze it in ice cube trays (ones with lids). One frozen cube is good enough for one serving. I usually defrost it overnight, microwave about 10 sec. to heat it up, mix it with rice cereal (optional, of course), and serve! Pretty easy. I still researched on a lot of websites about homemade foods so I made sure I wasn't doing anything dangerous. The only things they say NOT to home prepare are carrots & spinach, which have a high level of nitrates.

Here are some things I have tried:

• Pears


• Bananas (don't even have to use food processor-- just mash with fork & add breastmilk/ formula)


• Peach Banana (peaches are also good baked, in the oven with a little water)


• Pear Applesauce (use 1 pear & 1 small apple to make 8 oz.)


• Banana Applesauce


• Mixed Vegetables (I used the frozen kind & like I said, couldn't get them pureed enough. I'm going to try fresh next time.)


• Green Beans


• Sweet Potatoes (I really liked how these turned out & they are Leah's favorite.)

I haven't done a lot of research on just how much money I save doing this, but I'm sure it's at least a little bit!

Leah's been eating 3 meals a day for about 3 weeks now, and she is really a good eater. She has her days, of course, but many times she can't get it in her fast enough. I was concerned about how she'd do with someone else, like the days she's in daycare, but every time she's surprised everyone by eating an entire "Stage 2" jar (4 oz.). I almost always do a fruit with rice or oatmeal cereal for breakfast, a "dinner," like a meat with veggie or something more substantial for lunch, and then two different veggies (or a fruit & a veggie) mixed with cereal for dinner. I really enjoy planning out balanced menus for her (and they're probably more balanced & varied than my own meals!). I don't know if she's getting as much as a 7 month old should, but really at this point, according to her doctor, solid foods are more for practice than anything else, as she's still getting most of her nutrition from breastmilk.

My Shopping Buddy

Look who gets to ride like a big girl now! She wanted to reach out and grab everything!