8 Month Letter

Dear Mungee,

You are 8 months old!  That's two-thirds of the way to a year! 

Many things have taken place in the last month:

-In the middle of March, you got a terrible ear infection and a cold, and at the same time I suspected that you were teething.  Your first tooth emerged at the beginning of April and was soon joined by your second a few days later.

-You celebrated your first Passover

-At the beginning of April, you discovered the joy of holding a toy in each hand and banging them together.  You especially like to do this with the rings from your ring stacker.  Here you are banging together the rings from the ring toss game at MyGym:

-You are working on waving.  You currently flap and flail your arms but we know what you mean.

-You sit in your Floppy seat at restaurants and sat in a shopping cart at Target.  You weren't too sure about the shopping cart.  You have a tendency to lean and slouch in the high chair and cart.  Good thing that Floppy seat is padded!

-You sit up very well for long periods of time, but you still fall back every so often.  While sitting, you stretch as far forward as possible to grab at toys that are out of your reach and then you can sit back up.

-You stand right up by grabbing our thumbs, but you haven't pulled up on anything else yet, nor have you taken any steps.

-You are working so hard on trying to crawl.  You can pivot in all directions on your belly, but you can't figure out how to get your knees underneath you to propel you forward.  When you're really concentrating you even stick out your tongue and curl it to the side of your mouth - this is something new you've added in just the last few days.

-You've become much more vocal.  You babble constantly, and more so when you're tired.  Your "words" include mamama, dadada, eh na na, buh, uh, mmmmm, eeee!, and yee yee.

-You show affection for your toys by sticking out your tongue and spitting at them.  You love to focus on the eyes of toys that have faces.  You scratch at them and try to eat their face. 

-You still love to eat tags and straps.  You constantly nom nom on the high chair straps.

-You figured out how to bounce in your Exersaucer and you get quite excited and bouncy when we play peekaboo with you from the kitchen.

-You will look at an object in the direction that we point and you have even started making the pointing motion yourself!

-On your 8 month birthday, you tried Puffs.  We're practicing daily to get the hang of things.

This looks interesting ...

Okay, now what?

We've finally figured out a schedule and you seem to be a happier baby because of it.  I know when you need to nap and now it's easier to get you to take a nap - even though you're napping on me and not in your crib.  I recently read something another mother wrote, "All things with babies are temporary".  That really resonated with me and I try to remind myself of it when I'm feeling anxious or stressed.  So I don't mind being temporarily immobile for a few hours a day if it means you're getting the rest you need and I'm not fighting you for hours to take a nap.

You suffered a pretty significant setback in your sleep habits.  You were sleeping through the night, but after you got sick, you started waking once, then twice, then three times a night.  The easiest thing to do is to nurse you and put you back in your crib and you'll go back to sleep.  Miraculously, I feel that a change is coming*, but I don't want to jinx anything by typing out the difference we experienced the last two nights.  *Fingers crossed!

You continue to grow and change and have new experiences each day.  I hope that we provide you with all the love and care you need to thrive.  Sometimes I feel like I'm rushing you to achieve your milestones, and once you do, I'll long for the days when you would curl up on my chest and I could drink in your baby snores.

Love always,

Mama and Daddy