8 months!

Our sweet little Cadence is eight months old!

I think this last month went extra fast because it’s also summer time. Our days are long, yes, but it feels like they go by faster than usual. Or maybe it’s just that I want time to slow down soooo baaaaadly so I can snuggle my tiny baby that much longer. *sigh* anyhow, here’s how our little girl’ is shaping up as an eight-month-old!

Hair: It grew in really fast, and is now in a really unfortunate mullet-like shape—it’s much longer on the sides and in the back than on the top. And the hairs that she does have on the top of her head are so light and feathery that they usually stick straight up. LOL! These are those baby pictures she’ll look back at and say to me, “Mom! Why didn’t you do something about my hair!?”. Sorry honey! It’s just one of those phases all babies go through and there isn’t much of anything that can be done about it. If it was winter time, I’d have you in a hat, but hats are a bad idea when its over 80 outside! In other hair related news…it’s not super red anymore (sad face) it’s more of a dark blonde with red tones. It will be interesting to see where it settles as it grows in more.

Teeth: She still doesn’t have any teeth. I’m sure there in there somewhere, and I’m so paranoid about them coming in, that every bad mood or random crying fit or string of drool is “A SIGN!!!” that she’s teething. Adelaide got her first two teeth at six-months and by eight-months she had six teeth…so…ya. I’ve been waiting…I suppose it’s a good thing that she doesn’t have any teeth yet, since she’s still a breast-only baby (no teeth to bite me with!).

Food: Cadence is now eating 2-3 meals of solid food every day, and complimenting those meals with 3-4 breast feedings. She still refuses to suck on a bottle…but she’ll chew on a sippy cup, so I guess that’s worth something? Our plan is to keep giving her a sippy cup until she figures out how to drink from it. All of my attempts to get her to drink from a bottle have failed miserably. The only thing I haven’t tried, is completely denying her any breast feedings and only offering the bottle for 24 hours. I’m sure this would work (to some degree) but oh the suffering during that 24 hours…I’m not that desperate…yet… I am DETERMINED not to breastfeed past 12 months…because I don’t want to, damnit, that’s why! Anyhow…operation sippy cup, COMMENCE!

Physical Developments: Still army crawling her way around the world. She gets up on her hands and knees frequently, and rocks back and forth, only to collapse back onto her tummy and army crawl to whatever destination she scouted. It works for her, so I’m not complaining. She finds plenty of trouble to get into, as it is! I’m finding that I really enjoy our sunken living room, because it acts as a built-in corral. I realize that it wont take her long to figure out how to get up the one, lonely step, but for now, I can put her down and know she only has 150 square feet of crawling space.

She’s almost clapping! Cadence has been banging her hands on anything and everything for months now, so Adelaide and I have been trying to shower her how to clap. She’ll do it once and then stop, so I’m sure any day now she’ll be giving us all loud, rounds of applause! I love clapping babies!

Noises: Cadence has really found her voice. I assumed she’d stay super quiet, since her sister is constantly talking, but no, much to my dismay, they just try to talk over each other. Our car rides are insanely noisy.

Cadence’s newest noise is pretty fun—she makes the “oh” sound and then rubs the back of her fist over her mouth which makes an “oh-ooo-oh-ooo-oh-ooo” sound. She’s pretty pleased with herself. There are also, still, a lot of “mamas” and gurgles and raspberries.

Sleep: This is the topic new moms care the most about! haha! Cadence is doing really well in the sleep department. She wakes up between 7 and 8, takes two naps during the day (10-12 and 2-4) and then goes to bed between 7 and 8. It’s nice that she’s so predictable, but the two-hours-up/two-hours-down schedule is just hard. There’s barely any time to go and do anything while she’s awake, so a lot of time we have to cut into her naps to run errands or go on outings for Adelaide. She’s a trooper though!

She’s puts herself to sleep for the most part, which is A-MA-ZING! That’s my favorite part…all I do is feed her, give her some snuggles and then lay her down, awake, in her crib and say “nigh-night!”. The rest is up to her. Sometimes she goes right to sleep, sometimes it takes her 20 minutes of minimal fussing, and on some nights she refuses to sleep and cries until I go in and pick her up to re-do the nursing/snuggling. It’s rare though, when she doesn’t put herself to sleep. Maybe once a week? And it’s almost always when it’s super hot, or she’s extra tired, so I can be understanding and patient with her on those nights.

She is still sleeping in our Arms-Reach portable crib, but it is QUICKLY getting to be too minimal for her every-day sleeping needs. Adelaide’s old crib needed some serious TLC after she was done with it (kids are rough on cribs!) so it is currently completely disassembled in our garage in the middle of a full re-finishing. I’m hoping to have it back in fighting shape in two weeks! I’ll have pictures when it’s all done and pretty 🙂  (UPDATE: See pics here)

That’s all the updates I have for this month! Here are some pics of our sweet little eight-month-old girl!