Today marks Genevieve’s “eighth month birthday” exactly, as she was born on a Saturday. Therefore, we thought it appropriate to do a much-needed update on what our sweet girl is up to these days.
Genna is growing very quickly. She is already wearing 12 month onesies (although they always seem to run small) and has been comfortably fitting into most 9 month-sized clothes for a few weeks. Interestingly, we have not had to adjust her cloth diaper snaps (and thus, the size of the diaper) since she was first wearing them at around 9 weeks of age. This means our baby is growing a bit longer than she is wide every month, and we can definitely tell by how she almost touches both ends of the changing table at the same time now! Though she hasn’t been weighed for a while now, we’re guessing she’s somewhere close to 18 pounds, which is good, because she should hopefully be around 21 pounds by her first birthday, which would be triple her birth weight.
Happy girl at 8 months!
Along with this growth comes many new skills. Genna has been sitting relatively well for about a month, though she still takes the occasional tumble. Every day, though, she seems to gain more core control as she reaches for things nearby and can get upright again withoutfalling over. She also decided to celebrate her eight months by showing us some major achievements today: she rolled from her back to her tummy numerous times (previously, she preferred to only go from her tummy to her back) today and was met with applause from her mom and dad, since this is something we have been hoping to see for a few months now. Today she also attended our friend Kristen’s baby shower, and in her excitement about a new baby girl friend on the way, she began scooting and pushing herself all over the floor in pursuit of interesting things, like books, beads, water bottles, and the other 8 month old at the party. She’s not yet lifting herself up on all fours, and seems to find it more difficult to go forward than backward, but we sense that those obstacles are not far from being defeated. Hooray for a big day development-wise!
So big! But still getting used to wearing shoes.
In the world of nutriment, Genevieve has now explored many foods beyond the basic carrots, squash, peas, sweet potatoes and pears: she also likes applesauce, bananas, avocado, green beans, apricots, prunes, oatmeal, corn, broccoli, chicken, turkey, peaches, and mangos. She’s a great eater and is getting better and better with finger food. Her pincer grasp is almost good enough to feed herself un-frozen peas and bits of rice crackers. This is important, as she needs something to practice chewing with–she has her two bottom front teeth, and her two middle upper ones are just popping through now!
Working on the peas and blueberries...
Genna continues to delight us every day with her huge grins, or pixie smiles, as Grandma Kay calls them. She giggles and laughs a lot, and her laughs–like her burps–are quite hearty. Just making her laugh is entertaining. She entertains herself by chewing on her toes, but she loves being tickled and hugged even more. We are so proud of our little girl, and can’t wait to see what the next four months bring as we journey through her first year together.
"Being 8 months old makes me happy! And so do baths!"