I know, I know – every month I’m shocked at how old Claire is now, but this month is no different. She’s eight months old now! Sometimes it’s hard to believe that this little girl who is becoming increasingly mobile, is developing a sense of humour, is eating lumpier food in preparation for finger foods is the same teeny baby we brought home.
So here’s some new stuff:
* She now has SIX teeth coming in. There are two on the bottom, and four coming in on the top. So far so good as far as teething is concerned, though I understand that the molars are the worst. But I’m not going to worry about that yet!
* She plays her own version of peek-a-boo. For awhile now, when playing, Neal or I would drop a receiving blanket or her blanket bunny on her head, and she’d yank it off and laugh. Or we’d put it on our own heads for her to yank off. Now, without prompting or reminding from us, she will grab the receiving blanket, and hold it in front of her face, then quickly drop it, smiling at our sounds of amazement and laughter.
* She’s clapping now – have I mentioned that? If she throws one of her small toys a fair distance, she claps. She also claps when she is able to get back onto her bum from lying flat on her belly.
* Speaking of, she’s just learned how to get herself back onto her bum over the past few days, which makes life a little easier for Neal and I as she can just get herself up when she’s tired of being on her belly instead of crying for us to come over.
* She’s also swiftly learning to crawl, and that’s new to the past few days as well. It’s slow-going, involving her dragging her knees or having one leg bent across her and the other stretched out and kinda shimmying along. I don’t know if she fully realizes what she’s doing, that she’s able now to move all around her mats and get whatever toys she wants (or the Playstation, much to our dismay) all by herself. Neal remarked the other night that “She moves all over the place!” to which I replied, smiling, “Um, yes I know.”
* She never stops moving. Seriously – the days of being able to sit with her on the couch, cuddling quietly are OVER, at least for now. If she’s in our arms, she squirms, wants to move, to bounce on our laps like we’re a horse, or for us to hold her hands so she can stand. If she’s on the floor, she’s crawling/dragging herself all over. She plays with one toy, then gets distracted by another and plays with it, then gets distracted by yet another, and so on and so forth.
* Her mats are close to her vibrating chair, and she loves to crawl over and use it to pull herself up to look inside it, such as she is doing now as I type this.
* So far so good as far as the Christmas tree is concerned. Although the little red light on the Playstation grabs her attention, the MILLION lights on the tree don’t. Strange, but I’m not complaining!
* Although she’s definitely improving with sitting and moving, it’s not foolproof. She has taken many a spill, mostly on her mats, but sometimes on the carpet when she ventures off, and once on the hardwood floor itself. I hate it EVERY.SINGLE.TIME, but I know there isn’t much I can do. When she was first learning to sit on her own, we were able to put some cushions around her, but now she just moves too much. If she’s near the hardwood, we try to put a pillow down there, but otherwise, there ain’t much we can do. I think that I’m becoming slightly more blasé about it than Neal, simply because I’m home with her all day. Considering that I’m the worry wart in this family, it’s interesting to see him get a little nervous.
* I don’t know her exact weight, but we used our scale and she’s around 18 lbs, and she’s about 27.5 inches long. She is running out of pants and crawlers that fit her properly, so I foresee a visit to Value Village in the near future!
This was taken yesterday. Claire dropped some of her toys on the floor, and was then trying to move out of the chair to get them. Thank goodness she was strapped in!
Taken today, playing with her chair. Also flirting with danger - see how she's sitting on the hardwood floor?
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