April 8, 2016

thea - eight months

Sorry Thea, I'm failing on getting these written on time.  But I still haven't missed one, so that counts for something, right?  My biggest issue is I get all confused as to if something is a new development in the last week or so, or if it happened during your eighth month.  Bottom line though?  I love you and you refuse to stop getting bigger.

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Another month where I didn't really make an attempt to weigh or measure her, but when we went to a consult with a pediatric plastic surgeon, they weighed her at 17lbs 10oz or something like that.  Granted she was fully dressed including an absolutely full diaper, so I'm going to guess she wasn't quite that big.  She still looks pretty long, but I don't think she has grown a huge amount in the last month.  She fits pretty comfortably in 6-12 month clothing, as well as the 9 month and 12 month size.  Still wearing size 3 diapers, and sitting between a 2 or a 3 shoe.  2's are too small, 3's tend to fall off, so we just don't wear shoes.

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Sleep is still incredibly unpredictable.  Thea's naps range from 1.5 - 2 hours long.  Occasionally she'll still sleep for 3 hours, but it is pretty rare.  In the morning she is up for about 2 hours before her first nap, then 2.5-3 hours before her second nap, and generally 3-4 hours before bed.  Really 3 hours is her limit, she really struggles past that, but sometimes life happens.  She is usually asleep for the night between 7:15-7:45pm, and up for the day between 6:15-6:45am.  She is still waking once a night, but again, it is never the same.  Somewhere between 11pm and 4:30am.  If she is up super early in the night, before midnight, she might wake up twice, but that is pretty rare.  The other night I fed her around 12:45am, and she slept until almost 7am.  I look forward to the day that I get a full night's sleep, but this is pretty manageable.  I get tired, but I rarely feel like a zombie anymore.  I forgot to note that last month Thea was sleeping in a zipadee zip.  We've just recently transitioned to a sleep sack.  The change went much better than I anticipated.

*naturally the night after I typed this post, she slept 7:45pm-5:45am.  I mean, I prefer after 6am but you can't fault the girl for a 10 hour stretch!

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The reason we had to get her out of the zipadee zip is that girlfriend is majorly mobile.  I seriously can't believe that at 7 months she was just barely crawling and not sitting up on her own.  Now she can easily get herself into a seated position, is a pretty quick crawler, and tries to pull up on EVERYTHING.  One afternoon she manged to figure out how to pull up on my printer that is on the floor of our study, and it has been downhill since.  She tries to climb on top of everything too.  And not just with her knees, she is hiking her leg up as high as she can to get her foot situated on stuff.  Yesterday she attempted to climb the end table in our living room.  She is only a couple of inches from being able to get her foot on the second shelf.  It's absurd.  And has made accomplishing anything without holding her nearly impossible.  She no longer enjoys the jumper, and hates being stuck in the pack n play, because she does not want to be contained.

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Nursing is still going well.  Thea nurses when she wakes in the morning, after each nap, before bed, and a little bit before going down for a nap.  I try not to let her fall asleep nursing, but it still happens here and there.  It was easier to lay her down awake when she wasn't pulling up.  Now she just stands up and cries if I leave her in her crib.  And that generally leads to her falling over and smacking her head at some point.  She is definitely getting better at standing though, so hopefully soon it won't be as terrifying to leave her in there.

We've added in lunch to our meal routines, so she is getting purees in the middle of the day and at dinner time.  Though a lot of it is dependent on if her naps line up with our meal times.  Thea is also starting to really enjoy puffs as well as fruit in the mesh feeder, so I'm hoping to introduce more table foods this month.  We've given her bits of avocado, and while she doesn't spit it out, she doesn't seem to pleased with it either.  Another thing I forgot to mention in her 7 month post was that Thea was working on her two bottom teeth.  Shortly after that her top two started coming in.  So we've definitely got some chomping power!  She hasn't yet figured out how to really work the sippy cup.  She mostly just chews on it.  But I'm hoping that comes soon too, and then I'm hoping she'll drink breastmilk out of it which would lead to maybe possibly not needing me to be around all day long?  One can hope.  Really as long as she doesn't see me, Thea doesn't get too whiny even if she hasn't nursed for a few hours.  But the second she catches sight of me she is a hot mess until she gets to nurse.

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We haven't heard a ton of babbling out of Thea, but when she does it is oh so cute.  And she finally started saying 'ma ma ma ma'!  I'm very aware that it isn't directed at me at all, but we're one step closer.  I'll take it.  Occasinonally she'll 'talk' in this little whisper voice.  That's my favorite.  More often than not though, she just yells.  No distinct sounds.  Just yelling.  And she definitely yells in response to someone making loud noises at her.

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Thea loves to give me big giant nasty open mouth kisses.  It is pretty funny.  Granted she does it most often when she is really tired, so for all I know she is willing to latch on to any part of my body.  But she'll lean her head in, mouth open wide and just goober me up.  Elsie freaks out if she does it to her, but Ryann kind of enjoys it.  We've also maybe possibly started working on waving some more?  She stares at her hand and open and closes it, and occasionally will attempt the gesture in response to someone doing it to her, but really nothing definite there.  I'm also pulling for clapping, I think it is adorable when babies start clapping.  But so far I've seen nothing from her.

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Ryann has never really shown an interest in baby dolls.  Elsie didn't until Thea was born, and even still it can be hit or miss whether she actually wants to play with one.  But I'm thinking Thea is going to be my baby doll loving girl.  She seems to gravitate towards them.  She especially loves the one we have with the pacifier, because she enjoys pulling the paci out of the baby's mouth.  Of course that is Elsie's favorite doll as well, and has claimed it as her own, so we need to get Thea a similar one just for her.  Elsie is pretty terrible in the toy sharing department.  We're working on it.

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Thea, I can tell you are going to keep me on my toes with your ornrey little antics, but you can sure put a smile on my face in an instant.  Love you lots.

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