Eight Months

At eight months the Poopa Loopa's motor skills are exploding. She is intent on learning to walk and constantly pulling up and cruising, typically around the circumference of the often-open dishwasher. The only thing that can distract her from her daily dishwasher patrol is her delight in finding a dirty knife to play with. She also covers a fair amount of ground on all fours covering "her" beat with clockwork regularity. The beat begins in the living room where she'll have a quick glance around to see if any choking hazards have been left out for her to play with. She then starts the long crawl down the hallway towards the kitchen where the rest of us are invariably hanging out. Without fail she'll detour into the bathroom to check out what is available in the way of used tissues in the waste paper basket. Used tissues... mmm so yummy. Almost as good to chew on as a urine-soaked diaper if she can get her paws on one. I spend much of my days fishing slobbery strings of chewed upon paper products out of her gum rings. After exhausting the bathroom waste paper basket, she will typically spend some quality time fingering her favorite light socket before finally arriving in the kitchen. At this point she is often whisked up off the floor by her older sister and returned to her starting point and so she, like the indefatiguable Sisyphus begins again.

She proudly sports 6 teeth. The two bottom front teeth appeared shortly before the 6 month mark (right on cue according to all the baby books) and the top four incisors are simultaneously emerging which began shortly after 7 months.  Her vocalizations are in the vein of mamamamama and gagagagaga. She is not a big talker nor a big crier. We can reliably get a smile out of her by holding her upside down.

She is the only girl in her daycare possee of five which likely garners her some extra attention. Without fail she comes home with a single ponytail in her wispy baby hair. She has the advantage of being more mobile than her colleagues at daycare and any bottle or cookie left unattended (or attended only by another baby) will rapidly be swiped by her.

The breast feeding continues apace but it is a distant cousin to the breastfeedings of months past. It is an active pursuit complete with hair pulling (mine), nose twisting (mine), nipple twisting (ouch frickety ouch). She pops off the breast at the slightest distraction and has a look around before plunging back in. The teeth come into play more often than I would like (let's be clear, once is more often than I would like). Because of the struggles we have had with older sister and her pacifier (including an epic battle just this morning) we have not offered a pacifier to the Poopa Loopa and although she somes enviously fingers older sister's, so far it has not been an issue so maybe, perhaps there will be one less battle to fight on that front.

She still has a delicious pot belly and wonderous thighs but her joy in her mobility is steadily wearing the layers of chub away and soon Chumba Wumba will have to be dropped from the roster of many nicknames.

Eight months is wonderful. It is coos and babbles and smiles. It is not completely different from having a family dog. It is, as the cliche goes, all going by far too quickly.

I call this one: "Honey have you seen the baby?"

 

Making the dishwasher rounds

 

 

 Breast is best. But beer ain't bad.