Madison Monthly: Turning 8 Months Old

The Basics
She's awesome, frustrating, sweet, beautiful, tiring, and in general a baby.

Eating and Sleeping and Stuff
She still loves her food; although, we introduced fruit and now someone has decided she would rather eat Pears with Cinnamon than Harvest Vegetables. Honestly, who can blame her though? I figure I'll let her have some fun with fruit and then try to throw some veggies back into the mix in a few weeks.

I tried stepping up to the Stage 3 baby food, which is chunky, but nutterlicious took one bite, gagged, and puked, so we are sticking with Stage 2 for another month. I'm not sure how or when to introduce "real" food, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Sleeping is going well; my crazy baby still thinks that 6:15 is a good time to wake up in the morning, but I can't complain too much as she has been going down pretty well around 8:30. Rarely does she cry to the point I have to go get her in the middle of the night. A few 10 second cries here and there - and who knows what the phat that is all about - but for the most part she's sleeping well.

The only sleeping consideration is her unhealthy and weird tendency to sleep face down, hands tucked in by her cheeks. Seriously, how is she not suffocating? I worry and worry and then try to accept the fact that she must be doing this all night and hence perfectly capable of breathing.

My favorite parts of the day are when I go get her in the morning or after a nap. She is just freaking thrilled to see you, gazing at you with a huge smile on her face. Then she always does a full stretch, arms and legs fully extended. And finally, we get a solid ten minutes of cuddle time in mommy's bed. This is the only time of day my baby cuddles. She never just sits with you at any other time; she's got to be moving. Unless of course, she is sitting with daddy. Every now and then, she will let herself relax for brief moments on the daddy's lap, particularly if daddy is playing music on his cell phone.

Madison loves the water, whether it's the pool or a tubby. While we've been giving her sponge baths on a towel next to the sink, this month we finally put her in the sink. Oh mary, what a happy baby. She loves it, splashing and cooing and playing with anything she can get her hands on. I wish we could put her in our tub, but the only one we have is a jacuzzi tub which I am too short to bathe Madison in. And I'm not quite ready to actually take a bath with her - at least not all the time.

I brought her in the shower with me twice this month. I don't wash her or anything; we just chill. It's one of the few times she relaxes. She puts her head on my shoulder and coos while the water hits her in the back. My little water baby...

Behavior and Development

Walking. It's all we do. She wants to walk and walk and walk and walk. Specifically she wants to hold your fingers and cruise every which way. She refuses to walk back and forth between two people sitting on the ground - I'm convinced that's because she knows she isn't getting anywhere doing that. My back is killing me. My husband's back is killing him. We say this must be one of the reasons people have kids in their 20s rather than in their 30s; we are old and decrepit.

She is especially fond of walking up and down the stairs in our house - a tri-level. She also seems to like bathrooms; at home and at great-grandmas, the bathroom is one of the first places she walks too. 

She absolutely adores music. She will sit and dance on the floor, legs and arms flailing, if the tv is playing music or, even better, if Uncle Mark is playing the harmonica. She sings during these little sessions too, humming away in pleasure. Her fascination with music has been pretty constant. From the time she could make noise, she would hum along to the music on the radio in the car.



As she is so into walking, she displays no interest in crawling. She did manage to scoot across the floor on her belly (trying to get to my sunglasses the first time) a few times, but she mainly just fusses or all out cries when we try to make her crawl to us. Poor daddy keeps trying though:

She's introduced a few more sounds to her vocabulary. Various levels and tones of screaming and shrieking were her sounds of choice, but now we are getting some blah blah blah ba ba ba ma ma ma sounds added into the mix. I adore it when we get to have a conversation this way. And her mouth is the cutest thing ever as her talking looks a lot like a combination of chewing and smacking your lips.

Another trick of Madison's is the cocking of the head. From time to time, for apparently no reason, she will lean her head sideways. Most of the time she smiles when she does this. She definitely thinks it's a clever trick.

Social Stuff
She likes people and has very much enjoyed the many family dinners we've been having lately. She will sit in her high chair and make the rounds, looking from me to daddy to grandma to grandma to grandpa to aunt sheila to uncle mark, making sure to meet each person's eye before moving on. It's adorable.

We take a lot of walks, and now that it is getting cooler, poor little M has to be bundled up. She still loves it though. The stroller is the only place I've never heard her whine. She looks and looks and just seems so content to walk around. We meet a lot of people on our walks, and while Madison doesn't spend much time socializing - after all, there are trees and cars and squirrels to look at- she certainly isn't scared of new people, and will occasionally offer a smile at a newcomer before being ADDed by wind blowing through the trees.

Her Nicknames: While nutter still tops my list, I have recently started calling her Gorgeous because, well, because she is gorgeous. Nutterlicious has been making a few appearances, and I have to admit I am quite fond of it. I've been thinking that Nutter may not be a nickname one would use for an 8 year old, but it's a hard habit to quite. And what do I want her nickname to be? Maddie is the most obvious, and while I don't mind it, it's not the best to me. Maybe M? Although that may a bit Sherlockian. Any ideas? Do I let the nickname grow organically, and end up with something like nutter, or do I put forth some serious nicknaming effort?

The Pictures

Sup

Sometimes I actually lift my head off my shoulders and you can see my neck...

Ehhhh, I can't get my sock off if this shoe is in the way.

Swimming is the awesomest....

But walking is pretty cool too.

What happened to the sun? Seriously, what is this stinging cold?