Dear Lily,

First off sorry this is a little bit late, what can I say you keep me really busy.

Speaking of busy, you have had a really busy month Little Lady. You had some visitors and we had a lot of fun with them. I was a little worried that your Grandparents were going to drive all the way here from California just to see you and you weren’t going to let them hold you or be very social with them.  You proved me wrong and I couldn’t have been more proud of you.  You walked around in every ones arms just like a big girl and when you got overwhelmed you went back to Daddy and me.  It was a great visit.

Family picture taken at 5:45am just before they left

You have hit so many milestones this month that if you keep up at this pace you should be all grown up in a month or two.  : )

Your crawling in a sort of leap frog kind of way. It is so cute and you get around so fast I can’t believe it. And for some reason you really want to eat our computer chair bases, so when you’re on the floor we have to keep constant watch because those are the first things you go for.

This picture is a little deceiving. You push yourself with your toes and sort of leap, but you do get your knees under you sometimes and then you fall forward.

You got your first tooth. Its your front bottom left. It is a sharp little sucker. There’s no picture of it because every time I try to look at it your tongue gets in the way. I can guarantee its there though.  *** Since I started writing this you sprouted a second tooth and I got a blurry picture of them.

You love to eat dinner. I’ve tried to give you breakfast before and you refuse, you’d rather just nurse during the day. But you love dinner. So far your really like butternut squash, acorn squash, avocado, sweet potato, and peas. You hate bananas (so do I) and pureed green beans. You love gumming raw green beans and steamed broccoli. I’m making all of your baby food and I love doing it. Besides bananas I haven’t tried fruits yet because you are only eating once a day and need calories and I figure vegetables are better for you. When I first started feeding you I did all the work, you tried grabbing at the spoon but not with too much interest. Now you are all about doing it yourself (I think I’m in trouble already). I put the food on the spoon and aim it at you and then you take over. Its a very messy way to deal with dinner but you love it. I make sure that you get most of it in your mouth but you do end up wearing a lot of it.

green bean loving

peas mixed with homemade rice cereal

You are sitting like a champion. You topple every once in a while, but its mostly when you are tired or trying to grab something. You got your fist boo boo that wasn’t fingernail related on your 8th month birthday because of a toppling incident. You were reaching for your little plastic keys and they got you in the eye. All in all its so cute to see you sitting there playing with a toy or trying to eat a book.

You are loving being read to these days. Your doctor (whom we love btw) suggested some books by Sandra Boynton since you weren’t enjoying Dr. Suess yet. Which as any other mom would know are way too old for you. The books by Boynton are board books and pretty simple and you really like it when we read them to you. Of course like I already said you really like to eat them too. Either way its very cute.

I don’t know if this is a thing you just started this month or if I just noticed it, but you are looking for where sounds come from. If something happens behind you you will turn around and try to find it. I think its a great thing except when you are nursing and you try to look without letting go. Ouch.

This isn’t exactly a milestone but I want to remember it. When you started “crawling” you stopped talking. I had read somewhere that some babies only concentrate on one thing at a time so I wasn’t worried and your doctor agreed with me. The funny thing was right after we told your doctor at your 8 month appointment you started talking to us again. You will still go whole days with not much more then some grunts and giggles and then the next day you babble my ear off.

You are going through a sleep regression or something and what ever it is I wish it would stop and go away. I have this sleep thing narrowed down to teething, milestone disruption or just plain suckiness, if its either of the first two it should get better soon, I really hope so anyway.

Anywhere from 7:00 to 8:00 you will be so tired that I can’t hardly give you a massage these days but not 5 minutes earlier you weren’t tired at all so I can’t plan your bedtime routine. You fall asleep while taking your bottle or right after and sleep for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then you are up and nothing I do will put you back to sleep. Most days when Daddy and I are ready to go to sleep you will nurse in bed and finally fall asleep but a couple of days you weren’t having it and I had to stay up with you for more then an hour and finally got to go to sleep. A couple of other days you woke up in the middle of the night ready to play, those sucked big time. I can totally handle it when you wake up but just want to nurse and go back to sleep, but these days you were just in a playful mood so I had to take you to the living room and after a while (read 2 hours one night) you fall asleep and I can go back to bed. I am so hoping these weird sleep days are over soon.

We took you to the doctor the day before you turned 8 months for a check up. You weighed 13 pounds according to their old slide scale. The day before you weighed 12 lbs 12.8 oz at the hospital on their nice digital scale, I go by the hospitals scale since its the scale that you were weighed on as a newborn and just about every weight that I have for you is from there too. So anyway that puts you in the .38%tile, you are such a tiny peanut. Your head is 16 inches and that’s the .82%tile, and you are 25.5 inches long, 8.85 %tile. Woo hoo at least in length you are a whole number in the %tiles.

You are overall very healthy and meeting your milestones like you should but very small so the doctor is having me mix rice cereal with your vegetable at dinner.  So far you don’t mind it at all.

I think I’ve got your whole month listed, I told you it was a busy one.  I don’t blame anyone for not reading this whole post, it got out of control and was written in about 12 sittings so hopefully its cohesive.  This is really just for you Baby Girl and me, I hope you enjoyed it.

You take my breath away daily.

I love you so much,

Mommy