Breanna turned eight months old today. To celebrate, she decided to leave home. Kids are so independent these days.

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(George was heading out and Breanna crawled straight out the front door and down the hall. Hayley then immediately ran in front of her and started egging her on, saying, “Come on Breebles!”)

It’s hard to believe she’s eight months, but it’s also unbelievable how quickly she’s growing. I have no idea what she weighs, but my left arm says A LOT. In the space of one month she has learned how to get up into a sitting position by herself, how to pull up to standing, how to crawl, and a bit of how to cruise. She also learned the concept of jumping on the bed (THANKS George), and I have a cute video of that, whenever I get it up and processed on youtube.

She sleeps in the crib for about half the night and although it was a bit rough for the transition at first, more often than not she sleeps very well in there. Of course, some nights she’s not so keen on sleeping and would rather stand there and mock me with her laughing and her crazy hair.

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She still has little interest in food beyond initial curiosity. Actual food in her mouth tends to make her recoil with so much horror you would think I was feeding her bleach. Applesauce and squash were the only things that seemed to be acceptable but even those are touch and go. It’s not much of a big deal, I know she’ll eat eventually and maybe she’s just waiting for real table food instead of the mushy crap. It would just be nice if she was interested for the simple sake of having all four of us eat dinner together, but it will happen one day.

She gets very frustrated these days. I think she wants to walk and doesn’t know how yet so she has a tendency to scream with a lot of anger when she’s standing up and holding onto something with one hand. She also gets stressed because although she can get up, she doesn’t know how to get back down gently, so she eventually ends up thudding unceremoniously on her butt and she cries sadly about that each time. Her top teeth are also giving her a lot of grief and neither Tempra nor Hyland’s teething tablets seem to help much (I think we’ll try Motrin next) with the pain. Teething is making her suffer from a diaper rash too, which makes me feel terrible for her; last night it was so bad even that she started to cry when I put her in the bath, which she never does. On top of the frustration and the teeth, she’s developed separation anxiety so if I disappear from the room, even for 30 seconds to grab a glass of water – and especially if she SEES me leave – she starts to cry hysterically. More than once I’ve come back into the room to find a little red-faced Breanna crawling madly towards the doorway, wailing for me to come back. Heartbreaking.

So with those three things, the past few days have been, uh, hectic. But we’re surviving. Luckily, in between she still laughs like a loon. If you want a smile, you can tickle her, blow raspberries on her neck or stomach, throw her in the air, hang her upside down, or sing the “what do you do with a scurvy pirate” song from the Backyardigans.

Speaking of which, she doesn’t actually *watch* television but she does catch bits of Hayley’s shows. If she hears Elmo’s voice, she will nearly give herself whiplash to turn around to see him. Then today she was standing up by holding onto Hayley’s table and the Backyardigans came on and she laughed so hard during the intro song that I’m surprised she didn’t fall down.

Happy eight months, Breanna.

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See? Total Elmo love-fest.

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