Eight Months Old

Dear sweet babies,

You are eight months old! Where did my teeny tiny babies go? Why are you getting so big?! You’re starting to look so old, like little boys instead of babies. Makes me sad. But you’re still the cutest babies around, so I guess we’ll keep you. 🙂

Here’s all the cool stuff that’s happened this past month:

Biggest news is that you both have teeth! E, one of your bottom ones came first. A week later, both of M’s bottom teeth popped up. And then sometime last week, E’s second bottom tooth showed up. Exhibit 353 why you are the Best Babies–you didn’t seem to do the traditional screaming/major fussing/fevers; the teeth were just there. Wow, are we lucky! Who knows if you’ll be upset for future teeth.

Other big news for the month is that now both of you are sitting really well unassisted. We still keep pillows behind you for topples, but you will sit and happily play for a long time. Of course, “playing” almost always involves you stealing toys back and forth from each other. 

You also love to practice standing, and can pretty much do it on your own; you just need balance support. M, here’s a terrible photo of you balancing on my lap while I hold you with only one hand:

You both love to talk, babble, and blow raspberries. It is the CUTEST thing. Lots of “mamamama” etc all day. I can’t believe that someday you’ll be saying “mama” and “dada” and really mean it.

You continue to be very happy, giggly, ADORABLE little (big!) babies. In the morning especially you are so very happy to see us!

This month you/we discovered that you both like water. In fact, you love water. E, you are a little OBSESSED. You have figured out that my purple bottle has water in it, and if you see it, you will stare and start trembling in excitement, mouth open and arms out in baby-bird anticipation. You sip on my hard-core-lemon water and don’t even make a face at the sourness (I put a LOT of lemon juice in my water–I go through about a liter in less than a month).

We got you some sippy cups to see if you could ‘feed’ yourself some delicious water…but you’d rather chew on the spout. You haven’t figured out how to hold the handles and tilt it up yet, which is fine–you’re only little babies!

Speaking of chewing, you still love books, but for eating instead of reading. Reading to you is like a mini wrestling match as you frantically pull and grab for the book to shove toward your mouth.

New dislike: being laid down on the changing table. New like: sitting up on the changing table looking out at the living room. It looks like you’re a sovereign baby surveying your domain. I need to get a picture of this.

You have been eating solids all month, usually only once a day. We’ve done mostly store-bought purees, but we’ve also done some fresh foods: mashed avocado, mashed banana, peach chunks in mesh feeders–you LOVE that–and baby mum mum crackers. You still seem to like everything, or at least you don’t hate anything so far.

Lots of changes to your sleeping habits this month. First, because it got so hot, we transitioned you out of the sleepsuits and into sleep sacks. We were very nervous about that, but you still are sleeping well–thank goodness. But since the sleep sacks don’t prevent movement, you now do a LOT of squirming around in your cribs. We lay you down one way and you never stay there–you turn to your side, you grab the bars and wiggle sideways or ‘upside down’, and then you started flipping over onto your tummy! M, for about a week you woke up crying on your tummy every night at 330. Then, happily, you seemed to either get used to it or stopped flipping over so much. E, you almost always roll to your right and sleep that way.

Neither of you is crawling or seem to be super close, which I am relieved about. You both started doing this little bounce on your butt when you’re sitting up. Looks like a scooting pre-cursor. And you like to lean forward and make forward movements with your hands, which probably means that soon you’ll figure out that you can keep going and end up on all fours. Ack. You can both turn around and move while on your tummy.

You’ve now gone on some great daytrips and also had your first overnight trip to Seattle. (You went when you were 2 months old, but you’re so much more ‘awake’ and our routine has changed so much since then!) You did SO WELL. By the end you were just a little unhappy to be stuck in the car so much, but thankfully you were able to relax and sleep during a lot of our long drives. You slept in your pack n plays for naps and overnight, which we’d been a little nervous about, but again, you did really well–in fact, you kind of slept better!

You’ve been meeting/getting to know lots of family and friends–everyone loves you and loves holding you guys! You are so sweet and curious and adorable and you seem to charm everyone with your big grins and friendliness.

We love you!!

love,

mama