Teatopia

8 Months

My Daughter,

It feels as if I'm writing these letters more frequently. Time is passing too quickly, and soon, your days of being my baby will be gone. Of course, you'll always be my baby, but you just won't look like one. Even now, I look at you-- how you are almost too long for your changing table, how some receiving blankets barely cover you-- and I see how much bigger you are (more than twice your birth weight). I smile whenever you learn new things (so many this month!) but sometimes, I have to swallow to keep that that lump in my throat down because I'm worried I'll cry while everyone else is rejoicing over a new milestone. It's hard being your mommy because I feel things more deeply than anyone else, but I also reep the most rewards. Who else watches you look at them as you lovingly nurse? Who else is the comforter, the boo-boo fixer, the cure-all for everything? I am so blessed.

This was a really big month for you. You started crawling and now you're all over the place. You follow me in and out of rooms and you can get to anything that interests you, which is pretty much everything. You also can stand while holding on to things, and you're working on pulling yourself up after after one success! You also have excellent hand-eye coordination and you self-feed with your thumb and forefinger. Gone are the days where I feed you little pieces of food. You take it from me and then feed yourself. You are very independent in a lot of ways. You also understand that something out of sight should not be out of mind. Daddy likes to hide Gerber fruit puffs in one hand, show you, then close both hands and you know where it is every single time. I read that babies usually don't understand this concept until at least a year, so we are so very proud of our baby genius!

You also met your Mom-mom for this first time this month when she came down for Thanksgiving. She wanted to come sooner, but she was so happy to see you and she misses you so much. She got you to say your first word, "uh oh" and you've been repeating things ever since! You can say "dada" and "mama" although I really don't think you associate them with us quite yet, and you can say "bye bye" and wave. We know you understand this because if someone says "bye bye" you immediately wave. You also have said "duck" many times, but not when your Daddy is around. We're trying to work on other words, but when I say the same word over and over again, you laugh at me and blow raspberries.

You and your Mom-mom:

I really thought I'd be able to report you'd gotten a tooth, but that's not the case. In fact, I expected it to pop up ages ago, but you still smile that toothless grin constantly.

One of our favorite games is repitition. If I stick out my tongue, you stick out yours. If I put my hands above my head, so do you. You dance when we dance, and mimic pretty much anything we do. You laugh and laugh and think it's the best game in the world.

You still are not a very good sleeper, but you are wonderful in so many other ways, I'm trying to be patient. :-)

We can't wait for Christmas. We don't have as much money this year since I stopped working, but Daddy and I agree: you're all we want this year and we are so incredibly blessed and happy!

Posted by Hannah at December 11, 2006 10:59 PM