Eight Months

This month has been a fun one. Most of the new milestones have happened very recently, so we're having a lot of fun with the baby. I took it upon myself to weigh and measure her and it's a lot harder than it looks. From the best I could tell, she is 28.5 inches long and weighs 18 lb. 5 oz. Percentiles are about 89 and 60, respectively.

Eliana has been trying hard to become more independent. I love it because it frees me up a little more, but hate it because I see how quickly my baby is growing up. Her favorite way to show independence is in her mobility. She cruises in her walker, tried to stand while leaning on things, and uses the things she's leaning on for support while she walks their length (crib, couch, pack n play, etc.). She's also learning to crawl and it getting really good at the army crawl. We call it the slap-drag. See the video below. Yes, those are her cast off tights next to the walker.

Now we just need her to get more steady on her knees so she's not just hauling her body across the floor. But she's slowly working on that, too.

Eliana is a very clean eater and we had taken to not using bibs on her because she simply didn't need them. That was a blessed time. Now she wants to feed herself more and that is quite a bit more messy. We really need to get a high chair for her to eat in.

She has also become fascinated with the process of being strapped into her car seat. She used to cry when we put her in, but now she shuts up (if she was crying before) and closely observes what we're doing. She particularly likes the buckle. It's fun to watch her extend her index finger and try to press the red button. She hasn't ever gotten it to open, but she seems to have figured out that it does something.

We knew that Eliana was teething and had been for the past several weeks. I just wanted her teeth to come in already! After a few weeks of teething symptoms and no new teeth I gave up looking and figured it would be a while. The day after she turned eight months I was playing with her, while she was upside down with her mouth open, I saw the faint white line of a new tooth. When did that happen?!? So now she has cut tooth number three and I expect the fourth to erupt pretty soon.

Our Eliana remains a happy, sweet girl with a ready smile. She's at such a fun age right now and I love playing with her.