Emilia - 8 Months

She is 2/3 of a year old already. This is happening too quickly. Emilia has changed a lot in the last month. She celebrated her first Christmas and New Year's. We had a crazy week where she went to bed 3x elsewhere and we had to transfer her, as well as another day she napped in another house. Hooray for relatively flexible babies!

There were like 12 great shots from this month. I had a really really hard time choosing... The rest are at the end of the post :)

Dominic at 8 Months

Can you tell they're siblings or what?)

Weight: 16 lb (25th percentile) - This is huge. Almost 2lb up from a month ago! and doubled her percentile on the growth chart!!!
Height: 67.5 cm (25th percentile)... what a proportionate baby!


Likes:

• Bath time. She loves to splash around, but can't be trusted as she tries to crawl towards toys which leads to a potential face-plant into the water. 
• Music. This girl is a dancer!
• Chest and armpit tickles.
• Dom trying to play with her. They have just recently started "playing" and interacting more. They will just laugh and squeal back and forth, or play peek-a-boo, or crawl and chase each other around. I can't wait for them to become best friends (and enemies at times I'm sure)
• Standing at her table toys. She will stand happily for 20+ minutes unless she falls over
• The Christmas tree when it was up. Her favorite game was speed-crawling towards the tree and then we'd say, "Yayaaaa!! What do you think you're doing?!" and she'd crawl even faster and we'd grab her feet and drag her back. So many giggles! <3

Dislikes:

• Trying and failing to pull herself up. 
• Finger food (except puffs). She looks at it with disgust and kind of mashes it with her fingers, or reaches over and feeds it to the dog *insert eye roll here*
• Sitting still. Always on the move. 

Notes:

• 9 month clothing and size 3 diapers now!
• Her first tooth poked through on January 5! I'm not sure if we just didn't notice the acute signs of teething because she was sick with a head cold or because she's a champion teether. We'll find out I suppose!
• I said in my last post I figured she'd be crawling by Christmas. Well 4 days after she turned 7 months she started moving forward, and now there's no stopping her! She army crawls ALL over the place. No one is safe anymore. 
• At her 6 month immunizations the doctor heard a minor heart murmur. We had an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist team at SMH last week to get it checked out. She had an ECG and ultrasound of her heart. She did SO well considering it was nap time, she had a poopy diaper and there were strangers handling her and she had to stay still. In the end she is perfectly healthy, and they described the murmur as a "flow murmur" which they could barely hear. My understanding is that it's just the sound of the blood flowing through the heart(?). I wasn't too worried about it, but it's nice to have that peace of mind. 
• Lots of babbling. Ba ba ba ma ma ma ya ya ya pa pa pa
• When Dom was her age I was already pregnant with her. Yeesh! For the record, this is not the case this time.
• She is so so active. Way different from Dom. Always on the move one way or another. Dom was just a potato. He was happy to sit in one spot and play with the toys in front of him. Emilia needs to be constantly entertained. She doesn't like sitting still long enough to eat, so I have to put on a "show". Play peek-a-boo, sing, dance, whatever I can do to keep her happy in one spot long enough to eat.
• She spits up a lot, I think mostly because after she eats, we put her down and she's immediately crawling around on her tummy. 
• Her and Dom occasionally "play" nicely together. He tickles her or plays at her table toy or plays peek-a-boo with her often. It's pretty sweet, but mostly it just ends in Dom getting mad because she tries to steal his cars and Paw Patrol characters.
• She seems to have less stranger danger than even a few weeks ago. Over Christmas there were so many social events in a row I think she must have just gotten used to it. Her grandparents can even hold her now sometimes when I'm in the room! It's sad that this is a celebratory moment, but it is. 
• She had her first cold, which included horrible congestion and a cough. The congestion is the worst part because she self-soothes by sucking her fingers, so she couldn't. She's still an awesome sleeper and made it through the night every night without intervention from me, despite wake-ups and coughing fits. I tried one time to help her get to sleep at the beginning of the night and it was useless. She does not get comfort from cuddling; just excitement!
• As mentioned above, she gained almost 2lb in a month. She has only gained 5lb total in the last 6 months, so this is major!! 
• She started bopping to music a couple weeks ago, and she does it all the time now. Dom didn't start this behaviour until around 11 months. She's 4 months ahead of him!
• I have been completely done nursing for a few weeks already. My body just stopped producing. At least I didn't have to wean or anything I suppose!
• She eats whatever, as in there aren't any concerns of allergies. She did really enjoy my potato leek soup and my broccoli cheese soup. Anything soft and smooth she likes. 

A Typical Day:
She is consistently on 2 naps per day, falling conveniently around Dom's one big nap. Impossible to leave the house with all of us if keeping to the schedule, but easier for me because I only have one kid most of the day!
She's on a 2.5/3/3 schedule right now. Ish. She's a little more flexible and still usually sleeps well if her wake times get stretched a bit. 

700/715: Wake up & 8oz bottle formula
830: Oatmeal (5 TBSP)
945-1100: Nap 1
1100: 7oz bottle formula
1245: Lunch (Either some puree I have or an attempt at finger food, applesauce, yogurt...)
200-330: Nap 2
330: 7oz bottle formula
500/530: Dinner with us (again, whatever I can scrounge up)
630: 8oz bottle formula
630: Bedtime

And the rest of the photos from today <3

She's so crazy. I love her.