At 8 months, K is impressively mobile and engaged. She
crawls very fast now, pulls up on furniture, walks along things she can hold
(couch, small tables, etc), and can reach from one thing to another to keep
going (move from one couch t another at a 90 degree angle at her grandparent's).
She impresses me also with the precision of her movements – she cautiously
transitioning from standing holding furniture to sitting: turn and look, one
hand reaches, slowly bend knees, reach for ground, let go, land on hand and
bottom, turn, crawl. In her first encounter with ungated indoor stairs, she exuberantly
climbed all the way to the top (with me crawling over her of course). She loves
the stairs in the house and will be sad to see the baby gate go up.
I think she may be a young walker too – a few days ago she
stood up on her own, unassisted, in the middle of the floor: first with her
hands on the ground, but then all the way standing with her hands out. It was
only for a moment before she dropped down again, but at 8m old I was surprised!
She is just starting to enjoy food and do more than taste,
smear and throw. It’s fun seeing her try new things. There are no set dislikes
(but I’ve read that babies don’t form a set opinion until many tries regardless)
but her current favorites are raspberries, baby oatmeal with butter, rice
cereal with raspberries and blueberries mashed into it (we call it baby cobbler
– it’s delicious), tuna, turkey, sausage (little pieces), peas, carrots and
puffs. She still isn’t crazy about sweet potato or bananas, and if she’d prefer
milk she isn’t having anything else.
We still co-sleep – she is very snuggly at night. We are also
still up every 2-3 hours on a good night, and countless times on a bad one. The
lack of sleep is starting to get to me, and is especially difficult with
working full time and a long commute added into the picture, but somewhere
between coffee and coping we get through it. Friends have told me their littles
started sleeping better around the 8-9m window and we’re hoping we may have
that too. I try to remind myself of the upside to waking all night, which is
knowing that K’s light sleep schedule reduces the risk of SIDs.
She still loves reading and books – has been turning the
pages herself for months now but does it with such enthusiasm now.
