eight months

dear sophia,

i can’t believe you’re eight months old today! you’re a proper baby now with your very own personality and quirks. it’s fantastic to see you grow, learn, and play every day. i’m so grateful to be able to experience all of your firsts with you and wouldn’t trade a moment (even the not so nice ones) for the world. here’s what you’ve been up to this month:

playing: you still love to play rough, and i think we have your daddy to blame for that. you love flying on his legs, rolling around on the floor with him, and sitting on his shoulders. i think he secretly throws you in the air, too, but i’ll turn a blind eye because i’m only KIND OF nervous about you getting whiplash or hitting the light fixtures. only kind of. 😉 you’re still rolling and sitting beautifully, but you can also sit up from a laying down position and have just just just started to CRAWL!!! it only happened on saturday and luckily daddy, gram, and i were all there to see it (gram was there via skype, unfortunately not in person). it really really is the beginning of the end now for us. time to bolt the bookcases to the walls and get some gates up. and vacuum daily. even though it makes you cry, the naughty hoover. you’re also waving at the baby in the mirror (who we talk to every day) and anyone else who will catch your eye, clapping along to if you’re happy and you know it (and justin bieber songs…i know, i know), and are this close to blowing kisses. you’re smiling, chatting, and experimenting with new sounds all the time. you like to play peekaboo and are starting to develop a cheeky little sense of humor when you offer food and toys but take them away before we can get to them. you NEVER stop moving (unless daddy is watching something like return of the jedi on tv!). you are SO MUCH FUN to be around. also exhausting. phew.

eating: BLW is going so well and we couldn’t be happier. you love your food, and have started to show preferences for certain foods over others. you like your veggies sometimes, but prefer breads and rice cakes to the really healthy stuff. oh well, baby steps! you also really don’t like cheese. whose baby are you, seriously?! when i let you feed yourself messy meals, the room is covered in rice and sauce. but you love it! you’re so proud of yourself when you can do it on your own, so we let you as much as possible. you still love eating out at restaurants, but spend most of your time flirting with the waiters and other patrons (i don’t know WHERE you get it from, honestly). you feel so special when i let you drink water out of the bottle or grown up glass, and seem to prefer it to sippy cups. maybe you’re trying to tell me something!

sleeping: this month you’ve come along leaps and bounds with your sleep schedule. you go down at 7ish without a fuss, after a bottle feed from daddy or a cuddly feed from me when he’s at work. you’re adaptable and rarely cry at night, probably because you tucker yourself out with all your crazy activity during the day. we still haven’t moved you, but i don’t really mind anymore because it’s nice to wake up and hear your little snores from the end of the bed. you’ve been suffering from a cough that just won’t go away for the last few weeks, so sometimes you wake up coughing, but can usually get yourself back to sleep. the only negative with your sleeping this month is your waking time. for some reason (i blame daylight savings time) your body clock decides to wake you up at 5am. every. single. day. i love that there’s time for family breakfast before daddy has to go to work, but seriously, girl. 6:30 would be fantastic, once in awhile. as a result of your early waking times, you still have three naps most days. yesterday was a record: first nap at 7:30am. it was a loooooong day. you’re also teething again, so i think it wakes you up earlier at naptimes. poor bunny! soon you’ll have six teeth (or more!) and will look more and more like a big girl.

socializing: as well as being a kinetic and energetic little girl, you’re a little social butterfly lately. we go swimming with friends every friday and usually stay in town for lunch. most days we go into town to meet daddy for coffee and quick cuddles while he’s in between services and phd work. we meet other friends occasionally for coffee and you love being out and about all the time. i’ve just heard cambridge is starting a kindermusik program for babies in the new year, so we’ll add that to our schedule soon enough! you love shopping with me (unless you’re tired, in which case you usually scream your way through john lewis until you fall asleep). we also took you to your first mini photo shoot this month (see a sneak peek of it in this post), which you absolutely LOVED. you hammed it up for the camera and francesca, the lovely photographer. maybe we should make some money out of you through baby modeling!!! JUST KIDDING, but seriously, we would make some decent cash. 😉

it has been one heck of a month. you’re coming along so quickly that i often forget what you were like only a month ago. i look back at pictures of you as a newborn and feel like you’re a totally different little girl! thank you for letting me share this time with you. here’s to another fantastic month!

i love you!

Eight months