I can’t believe I’m writing this already! Nora is far too close to her first birthday than I would like her to be. In my head she was just born the other day…but then I look at her compared to my friends’ brand new babies and oh my, she’s just so big already! I realize she’s not as much of a baby as I think she is.
Of course, I love all the things she can do now; I’m so proud of my sweet little NoJo girl. But her babyhood is going so much faster than it even did with her brother’s and it’s just not fair! Someone tell me how to fix this?!
Anyway, here’s what’s new for our Nora Joy this month…
Weight & Length: Again, I won’t know her percentiles until she has her 9 month appointment (although I’m guessing she’ll still be ranking taaaaallllll for her age). But I weighed her at home and she’s right around 17 pounds, about a pound bigger than last month!
Clothing: All 9 month stuff now, or 6-9 month if it runs big. Only if it runs big. She’s so long! Summery girl clothes are where it’s at, man. They’re so easy. A cute snap-on romper and a bow and you’re really all set. It’s so much fun dressing her in bright patterns and pretty florals!
Eyes & Hair: Blue-eyed and cuuuuurrrlyyyy! So so curly! It’s starting to curl up all over her head but especially on the top. There is no containing it anymore. If you try to brush it down, it flies back up in an angry frizz. Someone is going to have to teach me how to style these curls because I have a feeling I’ll be way out of my element as soon as it grows in more haha! I love it so much, though, my sweet curly girly.
Sleep: She’s somewhere between two and three naps a day, depending on the times she goes down and the length of each nap. She naps for a couple of hours in the morning and then a couple more hours (or longer) in the afternoon. Sometimes she’ll supplement this with a quick 40 minute nap around 5pm to get her to bedtime around 7:30. It just depends on the day. At night she sleeps for her long stretch in her crib and then Alex or I will bring her to bed with us when she wakes up to nurse around 4-5am. Then she’s up and at ’em by 5:30 or 6am which is SOOOO FUNNNN. Actually it’s usually not too big of a deal because Alex is up and getting ready for work by then anyway so he’ll just hang out with her in the living room until Jameson and I get up around 6:30. It’s still too early for my liking but this is where we are in life haha.
Eating: I want to say we’ve made a breakthrough with solid foods but that might be a bit of an overstatement. We have made some improvement though! Basically we discovered that Nora just flat out hates baby food. All baby food. Doesn’t matter which kind. We tried so many. But she does enjoy trying regular table food. I think it must be something to do with the texture of pureed baby food and if I’m remembering correctly, Jameson wasn’t one for the pureed stuff either. He just wasn’t so darn dramatic about it haha. So now we’re trying more of a baby-led weaning approach (although still nowhere near cutting out breastfeeding), letting her discover foods on her own and giving her small bits of the things we eat. So far she likes apple slices, rice, bread, blueberries, Cheerios, really most fruits (not too many veggies yet), and of course the infamous Puffs. I never met a kid who didn’t like Puffs. I’ve been nursing her at her normal times and then letting her play and explore different foods each time Jameson and I sit down for a meal. It’s been working fairly well but hopefully next month I’ll have a much longer list to share of the things she likes because it’s still pretty limited at this point.
Milestones: She’s getting better with her fine motor skills from all that practice with self-feeding. She’s also so fast at army crawling now! She can sit up completely independently and can move from sitting to laying down/army crawling whenever she wants to (albeit, not very gracefully). She gets up on her hands and knees all the time and can move one of her legs forward but still hasn’t figured out the mechanics of regular crawling yet. I bet within the next week or two she’ll have it down. She does this funny plank thing now where she’ll hold herself up on her hands and toes and just sort of stay there suspended in the air for a few seconds haha. She can climb onto my lap if I’m sitting on the floor near her (which she pretty much always chooses to do because homegirl is mama-obsessed) and sometimes she tries to pull herself to stand if there’s something sturdy (or not-so-sturdy, ugh) in front of her. I’m thinking it’ll be awhile before she gets that mastered, but she has surprised me in the past. It’s crazy to think back on Jameson at eight months because he was full-on standing up on his own by this point and cruising around the furniture. He took his first independent steps the following month! Nora is taking it slower which I’m so thankful for because it was absolutely terrifying watching my eight month old trying to stand and walk and climb all over everything haha.
Ps, no teeth yet. She’s still the gummiest gummy bear in all the land.
Communication: She’s such a chatterbox and loves watching my mouth form sounds and words. I think she might be trying to figure out waving but it’s hard to tell whether she’s really copying or her arm is just flailing around. She knows her own name for sure and I think she’s starting to understand a lot of the other things we say too, like “hi” and “no touch” (although she pays no heed to that).
Loves: Mommy. Nothing else compares. She whines when I leave the room, when I walk past her without picking her up, when someone else is holding her but she can see me close by. She wants to be in my arms at. all. times. My hip is permanently sore from carting her around but I can’t say no to that face! So she ends up coming along with me for almost everything. But she does also love baths (and now the pool!), playing with books, watching Jameson or our dog Charlie, listening to Alex play guitar, chasing this rogue yellow balloon we have roaming around our house (leftover from Alex’s birthday back in March, lolz), army crawling around to explore (especially the playroom where not much is off-limits to her), banging out “tunes” on the baby piano, gnawing on raw carrots, and sleeping on her tummy (which is adorable).
Hates: Getting her ears cleaned. When you wipe under her chins (yes, chins). When you take away a toy or other item of interest from her. When she has to get dressed. When I’m in her line of sight but not holding her. When the Puffs are gone. (so sad.)
Things I want to remember: The way you smile and let your little tongue hang out as you army crawl as quickly as possible toward something cool, the way you check over your shoulder as you crawl away from me to make sure I’m still there and how you crawl back to me as fast as you can when I sit down on the floor, your extra gummy smile (when you clamp your gums together and smile as hard as you can), how I can hear you start kicking with excitement when I walk into the room you’re in, the fact that you have the absolute stinkiest farts ever, the way you and Jameson play so happily and giggly together, the way you follow me around everywhere doing your army crawl (which your daddy calls your zombie crawl), how happy you get when you see me and Jameson coming to pick you up from a nap, the way Jameson has to climb into your crib with you and kiss your cheek when you wake up (“stop movin’ your face around and I can kiss you, Nora” he says), and the way you hold hands with me as you’re falling asleep nursing. I think it’s my very favorite thing about you. (But then again, I say that about everything about you.)
I still sometimes can’t believe you’re ours, sweetheart. You are everything and more! Just the most perfect addition to our family. We all adore you so so much, baby love! Happy eight months!
Milk with a Meal 