8 months

This month's photo shoot seems to have marked an end of the "sit nicely in a chair" era. 

I got about three shots like this:

Before a whole lotta this ensued: 

This month Josie has experienced a lot of firsts- some good, some bad. She had her first fever towards the beginning of the month and it was so sad, though the snuggles were nice. She also had her first real diaper rash. She had a yeast rash for about a week and we had to put her in disposables and thoroughly disinfect her cloth diapers so that it wouldn't come back. The cloth are going back on today so cross your fingers that everything is nice and clean. As a side note to using these disposables- I now can't stand them for poopy diapers. While it's nice to be able to wrap it up and throw it out (as opposed to rinse it off with the cloth), almost every poopy diaper Jos has had has been a disgusting blowout. And she's eating more solid food recently so they've been *ahem* gross. I bought the Target brand because it was highly recommended to me by many friends and maybe it's just that they don't fit my skinny mini baby very well but they are horrible. I'm looking forward to going back to cloth because the main plus (aside from the cost savings) to me is that all the bodily fluids stay contained for the most part.

We also put her in the church nursery for the first time and she did pretty well. She's since been four times. Once they had to buzz me back because she was just inconsolable. The other three times she was ok- either fine for a while and then began fussing or fussing on and off the whole time. We plan to just keep trying it and hopefully she'll get more used to it. She may be starting to develop some separation anxiety (which is normal for her age) so we'll see! We also took her to a museum for the first time. We and Aunt Megan took Jos to the National Children's Museum at National Harbor in Maryland. It was fun but a bit a bust. The museum is small ("national" is a bit of a misnomer), Josie was a little young for it and it cost money (most museums in DC are free). But at least we had fun and got to see A.M.!

Now, I know in my last post I predicted that we'd have a crawler by 8 months. Well, not really. She is getting closer but there hasn't been any forward movement on all fours. She can roll herself around and scoot a little bit to get something she wants but it's not a coordinated effort of her limbs- more just like a reach and lean until the item is retrieved. She is pushing up on her toys and Paisley a bunch and will often rock forward on her knees/feet and "squat" in position. She is learning to be more mobile each day and we are planning on doing some more baby proofing this weekend.

She does love her Paisy dog. In the morning, when I get her up, she always looks for Pais to make sure she's there and she loves to sit and "pet" her. Paisley is so patient with her and puts up with the hair tugging, lip pulling and occasional tail tug with only a few face licks in return.

Josie's nighttime sleep continues to rock. I can't even remember the last time I had to go into her room after we put her to sleep at her bedtime (6:45ish). Her naps are still a bit of a struggle in that they are just not predictable. She will take longer ones but I don't always know when they will occur. Which makes planning a little hard sometimes but I'm just happy that her naps trend towards 45 min to an hour now instead of the previous 30 minute snoozes she used to do. She is going down for naps very well now- we often put her down awake and she sucks her thumb to sleep. Occasionally she'll have an off day and cry and sometimes this warrants some extra cuddle time with mama before naptime.

She's eating solids twice a day now and sometimes a third time at lunch if we're home and I remember. She is a bit more into food than she was at 7 months but she still doesn't LOVE it. Its obvious she likes certain foods but there hasn't really been a food that she's had that made her face light up. She mostly eats finger foods since she insists on feeding herself but just this week she left me feed her from a spoon which was a huge deal. So hopefully we'll be able to use some of the purees I have in the freezer. 

At 8 months a "normal" day for us looks like this:

7am- get up, nurse
8am- breakfast
9am- naptime
10am (ish)- wake up, nurse
10:30- 12 (ish)- play, run errands
12- naptime
1(ish)- wake up, nurse
1:30- 3- play, walk Paisy
3- final nap
3:30- wake up
4- nurse, play
5-dinner
6:15- head upstairs to get ready for bed, bath (if a bath night), nurse
6:45-7pm- bedtime

I realized I never recorded a typical day at earlier stages of her development and now I was thinking how different it is that I wish I had! And when I write it out like above, it sounds so easy and predictable but it's so not! There are often days when her second nap might not start until 1, end up being long and then she doesn't take the 3rd "cat nap". She likes to keep me on my toes!

She's sort of learning a few adorable things. We're trying to teach her a little bit of sign language to help her communicate. The big one we're working on now is "all done" when she's done eating. She just starting somewhat imitating me doing it. The actual sign for "all done" is to hold your hands up and wave your hands back and forth in the "Miss America" wave. When I ask if she's all done, she will often hold her hands up in the air and shake them (not in the Miss America way). We're also trying to teach her how to kiss and she will occasionally lean in to my lips with her mouth closed and stare at me. It's so funny, like she's giving you intense eye contact.

Oh! And I almost forgot. Hands down, my favorite new habit she had developed is laying her head on my shoulder and sucking her thumb when she's tired. It's the most adorable thing ever and it's like she's cuddling me all on her own...making my heart want to explode. She does it most often at bedtime and I've been taking longer to put her down because I just love holding and rocking her like that.

8 Months
Favorite Foods: puffed brown rice, eggs, sweet potato
Weight: around 14 pounds, 6 ounces
Favorite Toy: Activity table is a pretty big hit now, still loving her moose when she's in the car
Teeth: Still none