8 months

Spring has sprung and so has little Ellie - literally! Her biggest accomplishment this month is that she is now a full throttle crawler. It seemed like she went from inching along the floor to crawling in a matter of two weeks. Now she is crawling swiftly and quickly all over the house. Which also means we've had to step up our baby proofing. I feel like our house is now an obstacle course that even I can't navigate. Once she got a handle on crawling, she also quickly learned to sit up on her own.  This has made life much easier as now I don't have to help her get around as much. I can cook dinner or do chores while she is playing and she'll just follow me around from room to room.  I just have to be careful not to step on her! Sometimes she'll turn herself around in a 360 by pumping her legs back and forth.  It's really cute and she pants like a dog while she's doing it. She is also really working on standing and walking.  She can pull herself up onto our furniture and even stand up with only one hand.  She cruises along until she's run out of furniture and then protests. She has no fear and will brazenly crawl off the edge of anything she is on so we have to really be careful when she is on our bed or when we are changing her diaper. 

She has basically decided that she's a big kid now and wants to feed herself.  If I try to feed her anything on a spoon she gets mad, but if I let her feed herself she'll eat anything.  She still has no teeth so I have to give her things she can mash up with her gums like cheese or bread. She mostly gets food all over the floor but she's almost got the pincher grip down which will make it easier for her to get it in her mouth. I bought some reusable pouches for purees which help keep her interested in eating long enough to get them down. I think once she can really do it herself, eating will be much more fun. It doesn't help that I made big batches to freeze and she's been eating the same six concoctions for a few weeks now.  Right now she is eating: Apple/Raisin/Oatmeal for breakfast, Yams & Applesauce for lunch accompanied by some cheese, Zucchini/Carrot/Apple and Spinach/Pear for dinner. Did you notice how much apple was in there? Poor thing is probably just bored of eating the same thing over and over again. I promise to me more adventurous for the next batch. 

I feel like she's been teething for awhile but we still haven't seen anything pop out.  The last couple of nights we've been able to tell that she's really working on something.  She's been super cranky and slobbery and is shoving everything in her mouth - including any object or body part she can find. She loves to mouth us which is borderline kissing and borderline attack of a vampire baby.  Hopefully something pops out soon because she seems really miserable.  She was sleeping really well until recently - almost all night with a brief feeding at 5 or 6am and then would get up for the day at 7:30am. Now she's getting up at 3am and seems to have a hard time falling back asleep.  She is basically waking up every hour from 3am-6:30am and then is up for the day.  I am hoping this is just teething and she'll go back to her usual ways. From what I hear though, she could be teething for a while without anything actually happening.

She seems to be getting really big and sometimes when I look at her I feel like she's more of a child than a baby.  She has only gained a pound since her last weigh-in but she looks like she's chubbed out more.  She still doesn't have much hair, but I can tell that it's starting to get thicker and you can comb it one way or the other.  Baby steps, we'll get there! We are about ready to move her into her big kid carseat, the kind you can't remove from the car.  It's getting pretty difficult to get her in and out of her current one and she is getting too heavy to cart around in it. She doesn't seem to have grown in height, but it's hard to measure her when she is so squirmy.  She might just be growing out instead of up this month or it could be operator error. Here are her stats for this month:

Head circumference: 43.2 cm  
Height: 27''  
Weight: 17lb 6oz

Not much else going on in our world other than trying to keep up with this little girl. She and I are about to embark on our first vacation and plane ride without Tom.  We are going to spend a week in Eugene for Spring Break. She did well on our trip to Seattle, but she was 5 months at the time and she was less mobile.  Now I'm having a hard time visualize her keeping within our one seat.  I probably should have bought a seat for her, but I'm too cheap.  Let's just hope our neighbors are friendly, eh? We are excited to spend some time with the Ayalas who she hasn't met yet.  I know she will get a big kick out of Ben and Leo and try really hard to keep up with them. Cece and Xochitl will be there for a few days and Mamanina and Poppy are very excited to have us of course.  We plan on dying eggs and doing an egg hunt for Easter.  I want to take her to Tamarack pool to go swimming - something I think she'll really love and I can't believe we haven't done yet. I am sure there will be a few hikes and outdoor adventures, weather permitting. The Gilmore Girls are going to come down one day so we can spend an afternoon together.  It's going to be a really fun and full week.  Wish us safe (and easy) travels!

Bath time: All time favorite activity

She finally likes sleeping on her tummy

Helping out at the grocery store

Ellie is very good at operating the radio

Crawling around on her knee pads

Spinach face

Taking the park very seriously