8 Months Old and Fourth of July

Claire's "fake" smile... sort of.  Look at those chompers!

Happy 8 months Claire!  I can't believe she's getting so old!  We celebrated big since her 8 month birthday was the day before the 4th of July.  Claire, of course, knew it was all for her so she was extra special good all day. 

She was very excited when we gave her a flag of her own.  Of course, she's never had a flag before, so, she had to check it out.

Here's what Claire is up to now:  Still can't crawl, tries valiantly.  I am about 50/50 for believing she's one of the kids who never crawls or she'll start tomorrow.  She's that close.  She's just either not coordinated enough or too stubborn to believe her methods are not the best way to do it.  She is getting super frustrated though during play time because she wants to travel, she wants stuff out of her reach, and she can't get there.  Doesn't help when Momma doesn't know what she wants! 

This is her lovely hair bow from my cousin, Misty, who hooked us up on many adorable head ornaments that you will be seeing on her until she gets enough hair for me to style.

Speaking of "momma", Claire now regularly calls out "mama" and "dada".  We were skeptical (even after the "mama" incident a couple of weeks ago) that she really knew what she was saying, but now we realize a lot of times she'll call for us when we leave the room.  By name.  When I'm doing my hair in the bathroom I hear her calling "mamamamamama" over and over, and Claire has on more than one occasion started crying for "dada" when he left us together unattended.  It's quite sweet.  I'm thinking thanks to our excitement, she knows she's doing something right, which keeps her doing it.  She's become quite the mime, so us repeating the names and pointing is helping quite a bit.  She also will mimic "hi" or "hey" and she is starting to wave. 

You may have also noticed, Claire now sits up.  She just woke up one day and sat.  How crazy is that?

She points at everything now.  She's always pointing at our books, so I tell her lots of extra stuff to explain what she's pointing at. 
Also on the food front--she's been sipping out of her cup a little bit.  We started giving her watered down juice and that seems good enough for her to get excited to want to drink something.  She's been eating meat for a few weeks (some of mine, some store bought).  We have been trying more solid foods, like bread (disaster) and those little puffs.  Sure those are for "crawlers"... but Claire WOULD be crawling if she'd just pay attention to my instruction ;)  She's started eating those pretty well off her table waiting for her meal to be prepared.  She gnaws on them with her front two teeth and it's so cute because you can hear her chomping away.  It took a while to get her interested though; she made a whole lot of faces and gagging noises when we first introduced them.  She's a big texture girl, apparently. 

She balks at fruit puffs, but she'll eat a flag, no problem.

She watches a little Sesame Street now with me (I know, bad mommy letting her watch TV) but she likes it so much, I can't help it.  She laughs and points and looks at me like she wonders if I think it's just as amazing... and I was a big Sesame Street kid, so it's fun for me to watch, too.  I sing the songs with the show and she looks at me like I'm Taylor Swift or something. 
So, for the fourth, we went downtown all day walking around.  Claire was vibrant and happy and smiling THE ENTIRE TIME.  She let us each lunch.  She let us shop (and snag free books galore).  She took one nap finally, but I think if she could have stayed awake, she would have.  We also took her to see fireworks, and she was so excited to be out late with us.  She was going nuts!  Unfortunately, she started to poop out at about 9:45--and the fireworks started at 9:50.  It was a pretty big failure.  Of course, once we had her back in the stroller, she was fine.

This is what happens to hair bows... lucky she didn't let go and hit herself in the face!

I also invested in a new jogging stroller.  Claire LOVES it.  We used it for the 4th and I've been using it around the neighborhood.  Of course, I'm not sure what I was expecting--a self-propelling stroller apparently, MAN that thing is hard to use when jogging!  I look like a drowned rat every time I go running!
What we're looking forward to in the coming months: Crawling (so bittersweet, but at least she won't cry because she can't anymore!), pulling herself up on things (she's trying), more talking!  I'm also going to revert to some store-bought food for her, just to see what the textures and mixes are.  We already tried some yogurt and that was a HUGE hit.  I hate to stop making her food, but I'm worried that I can't keep up with where she should be on the types of food, plus with school starting in a month, I am going to be kind of busy to keep researching.  We'll see what I figure out for myself and then perhaps I'll start up again.  For now, we're finishing off the ton I have already and mixing in some different stuff to see what she likes and can handle!
See you next month!