Vivienne at Eight Months

Dear Vivienne,

It’s great to be eight (months)!

This is SUCH a fun age. You are animated and adorable, you’re usually capable of occupying yourself with a few toys, you still (mostly) stay where we put you down, and you’re FUNNY. Oh, and did I mention that you’re sleeping pretty darn well?

Why yes, you’ve made quite a few strides in numerous areas within the past month.

Let’s start with sleep. I wrote last month that you were still waking up in the middle of the night most nights, usually just to squawk or cry a little bit until we came in and gave you your pacifier back and you’d drift off to sleep. But then, I don’t know… you just kind of stopped doing that. A lot of the time, you still wake up about half an hour to 45 minutes earlier than we’d like, but we’ll take it. It’s not ungodly early like a lot of parents deal with, so… not going to complain about it. Once you’re ready to get up, you’re up. I remember that Nora would sometimes drift back off to sleep in the early mornings if we went in and gave her the pacifier. You? No way. If we go into your room and then try to walk back out again? You are MAD. You cry, and it’s a distinct “upset/angry” cry that we otherwise don’t hear out of you too often. So you’re ruling the roost these days in terms of the wake-up calls.

Food. You eat it now, and you do very well with it. It’s still all purees. You’ll eat pretty much anything, although the things that you like go down a lot easier than things you are just “so-so” about. I’ll admit that up until the last few weeks, I really hated feeding you solids. It was time consuming and pretty frustrating because you were not that into it and it seemed like every spoonful was a little bit of a battle. Now, you knock back big bowls of food like it is no big deal. In fact, you fuss for your food at dinnertime! If we’re eating and you’re not, there are many nights that you let us know that’s not okay with you. I think you may be going through a growth spurt at the moment, because you’re even hungrier than usual. Once your big bowl of food is gone, you’re often whining for more, so I’ll let you suck down a pouch of something else. You’re a champ with those pouches, by the way!

Oh, and your reflux? You’re officially off of the meds, completely. You still spit up quite a bit, but since it doesn’t seem to cause you discomfort anymore, we’re just dealing with it as a “laundry problem”—and nothing more! And me? Well, I’m eating CHEESE again! And it is glorious. I’m still not back up to my previous level of dairy consumption, but that’s probably a good thing—not just for you, but for me, too.

You are sitting up pretty well now. We still keep your boppy around you for support when you sway side to side and backward, because if we don’t, you can still fall over fairly easily. But I can tell you’re getting stronger and you’ll be a champ at completely “unassisted” sitting in no time. You love to sit on the floor and play with a bunch of toys. Your favorites are the small things you can manipulate with your hands and put in your mouth. You’re obsessed with things that crunch—the “crinkle” toys, and sometimes we’ll give you packaging to play with because you just love to make noise with it. With bigger toys, you completely manhandle them. We call you “Bruiser” because you so easily swing and bang things around and throw things with force.

As it turns out, your pediatrician was completely wrong last month when she told us you were not even close to teething. Because seriously, two weeks after she said that, your first tooth popped through the surface. You’ve now got two that are cut through, but they’re both still making their way up. They’re just sharp little nubbins right now, so they have a ways to “grow.”

When we put you down on the floor, on your back or your belly, you are getting pretty good at moving yourself around. No crawling at all—not on all fours nor the “army crawl”—but you can roll across the room, and while on your belly, you can pivot in a complete circle with ease. You do the “plank” position and manage to get yourself up on your knees quite often, but just don’t know what to do when you get there. Still, the way you move your body trying to figure it all out? Well, all of that movement manages to propel you a bit, even if it may not be in the direction you intended. And your jumperoo? Well, your legs are still too short to touch the floor (WHY do they not make them to accommodate smaller babies??), but I finally figured out that if I put our lap desk underneath you, it’s the perfect “booster” and you love jumping in it now.

You are a very happy baby. You’re usually content to just look around and watch everything going on around you. Or you are easily occupied with a couple of toys. You’re very smiley, flashing grins at pretty much anyone who looks at or talks to you. (That means you tend to be a huge crowd pleaser.) People can’t believe how happy you are. And it’s true—you only really cry when you’re getting tired.

You bring so much joy to our family. Nora continues to adore you, and you her, which absolutely warms my heart.

It’s been so fun to watch you grow and change. We’re going to keep on eating you up, okay?

Love you to the moon and back.

XOXO
Mommy