elsie - eight months

written October 8th

She just keeps growing and growing and growing...  Oh and mobility?  Yeah, officially makes these photo shoots 100% less fun.  As does teething.  Good thing she is cute! :o)

I was on my own for the size estimates today, so I didn't even attempt to measure her length.  We're just going to go with somewhere around 27 inches.  Sounds good enough, right?  As far as weight goes, I think she is right around 17 pounds?  Who knows.  Whenever I go to get her out of her carseat or something, she always feels lighter than I was expecting, but I'm guessing that is because I still lift and carry Ry around sometimes.  I've packed up all of the 3-6 months clothing in favor of 9 month or 6-12 month items.  She can do the 6-12 month leggings, but the actual pants (which who wants to wear real pants?  um nobody.) are still big for the most part.  Elsie is still wearing a size two diaper, but I had Christopher buy a box of threes today.  I'm sure we could still get some use out of the twos, but I don't want to buy a big box and have her grow out of them.  And when she wears shoes she can surprisingly still wear a two.

We average six nursing sessions in a 24 hour period, depending on how many times she wakes in the night (usually too many, grrr...).  E is consistently eating dinner (1.5-2 oz of fruit or veggie purees) and when it works out she has lunch as well.  I need to be better about making the meals a priority, but it doesn't seem to affect her sleep or anything, and sometimes it is just easier to not worry about it.  Sorry E!  This month the only new foods we've added are mango, apples and banana.  We've offered puffs a couple of times but Elsie acts like we're trying to poison her.  I find that odd seeing everything else she gets her hands on goes into her mouth, but hey.

In all honesty I've been pretty terrified about feeding Elsie too many new things, especially grains, after two extreme vomiting episodes.  They were both linked to oatmeal, and she hasn't had any other grains, so I have no clue if she will be affected.  But there hasn't really been a need to give her any so we just haven't.  However it is getting to the point where we need to be offering her a wider variety of foods, and I need to just suck it up and give some more stuff a go.  We've been giving her probiotics daily in hopes to help her digestive system out.  We still regularly have to resort to prunes to get something going though.

peace out ma

Sleep, well... it could still be a whole lot better.  But it doesn't seem to rule my life as much as it did with Ryann.  I think because I don't have to spend forever in the middle of the night trying to get her back to sleep.  Yes she wakes me up, and yes I'm often up for 30-45 minutes at a time, but after she is fed I lay her in her crib and she puts herself back to sleep.  For the most part, she is up for the day between 6:15 & 7, goes down for a nap 2.5 hours after that, sleeps for about an hour, is up for another 3 hours, naps for 1.5 hours, and is bed for the night between 6:30 to 7pm.  The last couple of weeks she has been fighting her morning nap, and I have no idea why.  But what are you gonna do?  We're surviving.  I think teething (as of October 1st we've got one coming through!) plus a lot of gross motor skill development is to blame.

Speaking of the gross motor skills, Miss Elsie is on the move.  She started sort of arm crawling, or really, inch worm crawling on September 15th.  September 19th was the first time we caught her gracefully transfer from a seated position to her belly.  By October 3rd she could successfully crawl with her belly off the ground.  And on October 4th she got herself to a seated position without any assistance.  She has only done it one other time since then, but I'm sure by the time she is nine months she is going to be crazy all over the place.  Her crawling speed is picking up quickly, and it hasn't taken her long to go from crawling with a purpose to get something, to crawling around just because she can and to explore.  As exciting as it is, I already miss being able to just plop her somewhere and know that she'll be there when I return.  I was pretty content with just the sitting milestone :o).

Elsie's babbling skills are starting to emerge as well.  On September 27th she said mama without crying :o).  I'm sure it wasn't directed at me, but it still melted me in to a puddle of mushiness.  She might have said dada on October 7th, but I'm not quite sure.  And again, it wasn't directed at anyone or anything, just making noise.  As far as noise goes though, she is still pretty damn fond of blowing raspberries all day long.  Which is great because we're always telling Ryann absolutely no spitting.  "But Elsie is spitting!"  Touche my friend, touche.  E is pretty good at waving hi and bye now, which of course, yes, is incredibly cute.

dude.  not what I was going for.

Stranger danger is still in full force.  She pretty much breaks down sobbing if anyone other than my mom, sometimes my dad, Christopher or I get too close.  Although she has perfected the shy flirt.  When we were in the airport, if any man smiled in her direction she would get this little grin on her face and bury it into my shoulder.  And then pop her head back up to see if the man was still looking.  With one guy I'm pretty sure she did it at least ten times.  It was stupid cute.  E is still also very much a mama's girl.  It is borderline ridiculous.  If I leave to go do something, she is usually fine with whoever is watching her while I'm gone.  But when I return she just starts whining.  Like she wanted me to know that she isn't happy with the fact that I was gone.  It's pathetic.

You wanna know what else is pathetic?  If it has been more than an hour since Elsie last ate and she sees the boppy pillow or my nursing cover she throws a fit.  Or if she gets too close to my chest.  She kinda goes crazy then too.  I'm fairly certain she isn't hungry, she just decides it sounds like a good idea.  And fits, she has definitely learned how to throw them over the last month.  She has perfected the art of throwing her head back in rebellion when she isn't happy.  Let me tell you how well that went on the close quarters of the airplane.  Yeah, not so much.

Other things that Elsie hates are having her diaper changed, having her face wiped having her clothes changed.  She is scared of a jack in the box and balloons (seriously, balloons.), and TERRIFIED of the dryer.  I had never taken her in the basement to do laundry with me before, but really needed to get some loads switch, so I set her down in a laundry basket.  Got stuff switched around, turned on the dryer... she looked at me, back at the dryer, at me, back at the dryer, and started wailing.  Like could barely breathe completely red in the face wailing.  I felt bad, but I definitely laughed.  I mean come on kid!  Pretty sure she is scared of the vacuum too, but not quite as bad.

Some things that Elsie really likes are a toy xylophone, Ry's big box of legos, air vents and pretty much anything that you wouldn't want her to play with.  Dirty shoes?  Yep.  Cords?  Absolutely.  Trash?  Of course.  Aside from the xylophone and this little plastic toy that looks kind of like an ipod and plays music, her toys don't really hold her interest.  She would much prefer to seek out something more interesting, like Ryann's markers.  E also isn't much into books still, but she loves Baby Colors, I think she loves the babies.  Lastly, whenever she finds her owl outside her crib, or really other stuffed animals or blankets, she body slams them and starts nuzzling them or something.  It is pretty cute (like almost everything else she does, can you tell I'm kind of obsessed with my kid?).

Elsie girl, I love you.  A lot.  A lot a lot.  It is so fun watching you grow and become more and more interactive.  You truly are a gift!