8 Months

Emma Sue, today you are 8 months old! You have changed so much in the past month, it is crazy!

• You are consistently getting yourself into a crawling position on your hands and knees and rocking back and forth. You have not yet mastered the crawl, but you do push yourself backwards a little before giving up, flopping down onto your belly and rolling/squirming all over the place. Your ability to get from point A to point B is now a possibility and you do it very quickly! I have to keep a very close eye on you at all times now.
• You love to stand up and just this past week you have pulled yourself into a standing position with barely any help. You will stand for long periods of time and when Daddy stands up with you, you hold onto his hands and step forward with your legs. Something tells me, it will not be long before you are walking around. You just love it!
• This month you started waving and have mastered two different waves. Your first wave (which you started doing at New Years) consists of sticking your arm straight out and moving it up and down. Your second wave (which you started doing the 2nd week of January) consists of you sticking your arm out with your hand in front of you and clenching and un-clenching your fingers. It is SO cute! 
• You are very vocal now, constantly chatting away at anything that will listen. You say mama and dada and all sorts of other sounds/squeals as you practice talking and singing. You love to sing with music and when you and I play music during the day, you just start singing away! When you get really tired, you don't make any sound at all, you have a blank stare on your face and nothing makes you smile. It is quite funny.
• Your eyes are still a beautiful blue and your hair has now turned a bright blonde color. It is growing quite a bit now! I bought you a few headbands to replace our pigtail days, but you just pull the headbands off and barrettes just fall out of your hair, so I think we are going to have to go back to pigtails. You do look super cute in the headbands though!
• You are growing out of your car seat and you still hate being put into it. You cry when we strap you in still, but as soon as you are strapped in you resign yourself to the car seat and stop crying and just fall asleep in the car most of the time. You do like the warm cover that is on your seat and you get nice and toasty inside of it. Now, I can hear you chatting away to yourself in the backseat as I drive. It's so cute that I leave the radio off just so I can hear you :)
• You are in 6-9 month clothes and seem to have slowed down with your growing. In fact, you are slimming up a little bit and I was getting worried that maybe you weren't getting enough milk from me because you seemed to be losing weight. But, you feel heavier and you weigh more so it must just be spreading out more as you grow taller. You still hate having shirts put on and recently you have begun crying every time we put you on the changing table to change your diaper. You have always loved the changing table so I'm not sure why you don't like it anymore, but you definitely don't! And, now that you are so active you find it fun to roll over while on the changing table and try to sit up, so I have started strapping you in and you get pretty mad at me when I do that. :)
• You are grabbing everything in sight! And because of this, we continue to work on the word "no" and trying to teach you not to touch certain things (like cords/plugs), but you still don't quite understand and you just look at me with a blank stare for a minute and then give me a big smile. :)
• You are now eating 3 times a day. A fruit/oatmeal for breakfast, a fruit for lunch, and a vegetable/oatmeal for dinner. You eat an entire Stage 2 jar at every meal and still act hungry. Dr. Tim says we can start giving you teething biscuits and puffs and trying foods with you but I am still afraid of you choking and so I haven't given you anything yet. You have tried pieces of banana and last night you sucked on a piece of pineapple before Mommy was yelled at for letting you try it because someone thought you weren't supposed to have it yet. That scared Mommy and so you have not had anything else and probably won't until you are at least 10. :)
• You love your Daddy! You get SO excited when he comes home from work and you get fussy right around the time he should be home and then the moment he walks in the door and sees you, you get a HUGE smile and you just can't contain your excitement. You squeal and bang your hands on whatever is closest (your lap, the floor, the high chair tray). It just melts my heart that you love your Daddy so much. I'm greatful that you don't seem to favor one of us over the other yet. :)
• You still struggle with separation anxiety. You do pretty well for about 45 minutes to an hour and then you get pretty upset and cry and cry and cry and won't let anyone console you until I come and get you. If I am in the room and I give you to someone else that you don't really know, you will start crying almost immediately until I take you back. 
• You are still not sleeping completely through the night but you have given us a few nights of only waking up once or twice during the night. I hope this continues!

You are just awesome Emma Sue! You bring us so much joy and so much laughter and we praise God for you every day! It is a blessing and a joy to watch you grow, learn and explore the world around you. You are such a social little baby and you just LOVE being around other kids and people. We are so excited to see how God will use you in this life. I just know you are going to be an amazing child of God and I look forward to the insurmountable task of raising you to serve Him. I pray that your personality is always so fun, so loving and so happy. You have been such an amazing baby! We LOVE you!