8 Months Old!

Anneliese turned 8 months old yesterday. Sometimes, life as an 8-month-old is tough.

Last month, I mentioned that she was trying to crawl. She would reach as faaaaaar as she could with her hands, leaning forward from a sitting position, and twist one leg so that she could get up on one knee… but the other leg was still in front of her body, so that was all the progress she made.

Well? Same thing. Still. Except now she “walks” her hands. She’s trying really hard, but her butt stays pretty much in the same position. It’s pretty funny to watch. She does manage to scoot a little if there is something she really wants though.

Sleep goes in waves. Today was awesome. 3 GREAT naps, easy bedtime, and waking after a few hours. Her papa had just called me on Skype so I got her out of bed to see him for a while.

For the last couple weeks, Anneliese has been acting like she has a lot of teething pain, especially at night. She would cry and put her fingers in her mouth, like she was trying to make her gums feel better. I think it’s easing up (the past few days), but still no signs of teeth that I can feel or see yet. My dear friend Amber gave me some of these, and they seem to be the best homeopathic thing we’ve tried. Occasionally, they don’t seem to help enough and I will give Anneliese some ibuprofen. But normally they help her tremendously, and she has started leaning forward to grab them with her mouth, then sucking on them until they dissolve.

Elimination Communication is going amazingly well. Today was one of our best days – she only peed in her diaper while she was napping. The rest of the day, she peed in her potty (about 6 times!) and she also pooped in her potty once. After our Skype session tonight, she peed in her potty again. I’m contemplating trying some night EC (still using cloth diapers… I don’t think I can handle the idea of “accidents” in my bed).

I have only “missed” a couple poops, and those were ones she did in her sleep. Other than that, I haven’t changed a poop diaper in about 3 weeks. You don’t realize how awesome that is unless you cloth diaper… because when you introduce solids (even if baby hardly eats anything), the poo gets weird and NOT cool – and you can’t just throw it in the washing machine any more. So I am VERY happy to have all the poo in the potty.

Last night, we were at dinner at a friend’s house, and Anneliese had to go to the bathroom, so I took her to the toilet and held her facing the back of the toilet (I sat backwards on the toilet and was supporting her thighs with my hands, over the toilet bowl – if that makes sense) and she pooped and peed like it was no big deal. Because it wasn’t. But it is. SO awesome. I was really very glad to NOT have that in a diaper.

Anneliese and Zora are also getting closer. I know I say that every month, but it’s true. Zora will now sit closer to Anneliese and let her touch, pet, and even grab her without immediately running away. I think it might have to do with Baby-Led Weaning (which basically means that Anneliese is feeding Zora all sorts of yummy stuff… like TWO pieces of bacon the other day).

Baby-Led Weaning is so fun, and now that I’m doing it with my own child, I’m realizing how truly baby-led it is. When I was a nanny for a family during my pregnancy, I did baby-led weaning with the baby girl I was taking care of. From about the second day, she was actually swallowing food. With Anneliese, it’s been a bit more than a month, and she is mostly still just interested in exploring the food, not really eating it. THOUGH she is starting to swallow a few things.

The other night I made tacos and gave her some ground beef, lettuce, and black olives with my homemade taco sauce on them. It was fun to see her decide what to eat. First she enjoyed the lettuce, but when she found the beef (which she has had before) she threw the lettuce on the floor and only wanted beef. Until she tasted a black olive. Then she dug through her ground beef to find the olives. Very fun!

Baby sign language is going well still. She signs “milk” ALL the time, and has started waving her arm around for “finished” more often, and once or twice has signed “potty.” One time it was while nursing and I got all excited and rushed her to the potty, but she didn’t pee. So it might not have really been the sign… but she was happy on the potty and seemed to be amused.
Not really sign language, but she has also started WAVING. She waves hello to strangers and to people she knows, and tonight she waved “bye-bye” to her pee when I flushed it down the toilet. TOO CUTE.

Anneliese has some good girlfriends who are about 6 weeks younger than she is – Ella and Kaitlynn. And they have awesome moms who are doing a lot of the same things we are… cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, elimination communication, nursing on demand, baby sign language, etc. I feel SO lucky to know these mamas and to have them close to me. The babies have lots of fun together, and we can sit our babies on potties and give them hunks of chicken (not simultaneously) without so much as a sideways look… I love the community we have.

Can I ask you for a favor? gDiapers is holding a contest on their facebook page, with the theme “g is for Game Day.” Fans submitted photos and the one with the most “likes” by Wednesday morning wins. Winner gets a (discontinued – super-hard-to-find) gTote, and I really really really would like to win.

I also think my picture submission was super-clever and is the best (obviously! haha), so could you please take a moment to like gDiapers’ facebook page, and then like my photo? Thanks much! I’m very close to being in the lead and y’all could help me get over the edge! I’ll definitely post pics of the bag if I win! Thanks in advance – and if you tweet / blog / facebook share it too that would be amazing. If you don’t think your friends would mind helping me too.