ada charlotte {8 months}

Baby girl of mine 💕

Time is just flying by! I was looking at some videos from last December the other day, and I realized how much you really have learned and grown since then! My little baby is growing up! You are no longer barely moving and barely making expressions like back in December -- instead, you are moving ALL. THE. TIME. and smiling or growling all the time, too :) Heaven help me when you're finally crawling -- you'll be into everything!

Thanks for being my little bestie. I love spending my days with you, even when I don't get enough done, even when you're making messes, and even when you take crappy naps and drive me nuts. I want to be home with you, so I wouldn't have it any other way. You are so sweet and so funny and I'm just grateful that you're mine, sweet girl.

Stats

You weigh 17 pounds (40%) and are 27 inches long (48%).
8 months old and I dressed you in the onesie we brought you home from the hospital in YESTERDAY. The long sleeves are a little short, but not even bad! That being said, you are outgrowing more and more of your 0-3 month clothes. Your 3-6 and 6 month clothes all fit now, and I even put you in a 6-9 month dress the other day! (Mostly because dresses are weird and it's already kinda short, but a little big otherwise.)
You are wearing size 3 diapers, and I think we've finally found a size equipped to handle those chunky thighs of yours 😂

Notable events

You got ANOTHER new cousin in the last month -- your final cousin that will be about your age: Lydia Jean. You two met briefly, but we forgot to snap a pic!
We celebrated my first Mother's Day with you outside of me. My birthday was on the same day, but I really thought more about being a mother that day. You were a dream baby that day, which made me extra grateful that you're mine :)

You met your Holmes great grandparents!

We've had a few one-night adventures as a family (Park City, Salt Lake City), but this month we went on our first full-weekend family getaway that involved a long car trip. It was so fun to do some REAL adventuring (read: hike Angels Landing) with you along for the ride! :)

Tricks/Milestones

You were sitting up last month, but now you are an absolute pro. You're also pretty good at getting out of sitting up and down onto your belly or back if you want.
You are also rolling all over the place now, especially in your crib. So much so, that we had to move the video monitor (twice!) so that the whole crib now shows, since you kept rolling out of the visible frame. It was kind of sad to have to move the camera, because now I can't see your cute sleeping face very well 😭 We also had to move the sound monitor out of your crib and the quilt off the end of your crib, because anything you find in bed, you play with! Haha :)

Although you're a lot more of a mover these days, you're not really close to crawling. You do push ups sometimes, and you've gotten on your hands and knees once or twice, but you don't do any scooting really.
Whereas you used to just spit food out, now you are a champion eater. I mostly feed you baby food, but I've also fed you bananas, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, avocados, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and yogurt. You've liked everything except raspberries (you spit that right out!) and you especially like bananas :) You do great when you're spoon-fed (whether it's baby food or regular food), but every time I try to let you feed yourself, you can't seem to figure out how to get the food in your mouth, so it just makes a huge mess and you don't eat much. I'm working on getting the motivation to let you try it more, because it has to happen sooner or later, and it will be messy either way :) You're also getting messier when I spoon-feed lately, since you try to grab the spoon every time I put it near your mouth 😒
You got sick again this month, and again it was no fun. However, it's crazy the difference a month makes, because it was SO MUCH HARDER to use the nose frida on you this month! Why? Because you know how to use those hands of yours to push it out of the way now. It was either a two-person job, or I'd have to pin your arms down with my feet while I used my hands to aim the nose frida. So yeah, your hand motor skills have definitely increased :)

Naps, naps, naps!! They're so great! You are officially down to two naps, and you typically do about an hour and a half for both of them. It was kind of awful, because I hired the sleep expert and you did great while we worked with her, but then the day after we finished, you started taking bad naps again that lasted for a week. I was just starting to adjust the timing of your naps like the expert told me I would have to do, and that's when you got sick. But after you got better, I tweaked things around, and you are now taking great naps. It makes me SO HAPPY! And it makes you a lot happier, too 😀
In the last week or so, you've started waving and saying hi! Your wave is a little wonky, and I'm not sure you really know you're saying hi, but you do both in response to someone else waving and saying hi, and it's super cute! :)

My favorite things

You LOVE food, and I kind of love how much you love food. It's just funny to me how you start screaming if we're eating but you're not. The funniest story of the month is probably this -- I made two cookies, one for Dad and one for me. While I was eating mine, Dad was telling us about his day at work, so he was not eating his. I would feed you little pieces of my cookie during the story. Then I ran out of my cookie so I started feeding you pieces of Dad's cookie. When Dad finished his story, he picked up his cookie and took a bite and you started SCREAMING. We couldn't figure out why for a minute, but it turned out that you kinda thought that cookie was yours, and you were not done with it! 😂 We ended up giving you a few more bites and you were fine. It was just so funny though!
You're a bit more cuddly this month! It's really only at nap time and bedtime. The last part of your sleep routine is for one of us to pick you up and burp you/rock you on our shoulder, and you now nuzzle into us pretty often. It's the sweetest thing :)
When you were sick this month, there were two nights when you woke in the middle of the night and started screaming. I had to use the nose frida on you and you hated it a lot, so you screamed more. On one of the nights I just rocked you for a minute after I finished suckering you, but on the other, I opted to keep holding you and snuggling you, because you were sooooo snuggly, and me holding you calmed you of those screams immediately. I held you in the rocker for a half hour or so before laying you back down in your crib, just cuddling you. I tried to soak up every second of it, because it doesn't happen hardly ever anymore. I love holding you close, my sweet girl :)
We go on one to two walks every day, as long as the weather is nice. You often reach a grumpy point in your wake period, but I can't put you down at that time because then you'd just wake up after a 30 minute nap. We use walks to get through the grumpy times, and they work like a charm! We both love these walks :)
We recently used the head massager on you, and oh my goodness your reaction is just hilarious! You don't cry, but you don't squeal with delight, either. I'm really not sure what you think of it, I just know that your head drops every time it touches you!

Random tidbits

Your nails are UNREAL. You are always scratching us and yourself!
You grab my necklace constantly . . . and everything else, too -- ears, noses, hair, glasses, hats, bra straps. You want all the things, and you want them in your mouth! I've started pulling your hair back whenever you pull mine, and I think it's helping you learn not to do that :)
You seem to only like the crib edges, as that's where you end up most nights. Any edge will do. You often end up sideways in your crib 😂 You also sleep on your tummy most of the time.
You are always looking all around. I think your favorite time to look around is when we're trying to burp you! This leads to a lot of spit up not on the burp cloth . . .
We maintain a healthy balance around here -- We did Whole30 in April, and since then we've been trying to continue eating those whole foods for the most part. So most of the time, that's what I feed you -- whole foods. But you're no stranger to cookies or ice cream if we're eating them. I also fed you all the chocolate off of my chocolate-covered strawberry I had with lunch one day. You quite enjoyed that lunch!
Well, if anyone asks you in the future whether you were dropped on your head as a child, you can now answer yes 🙈 I was sitting with you on the bed one morning. We were both really close to the edge, and you were just sitting up like the champ that you are. I had the thought that you could fall off, but I was right there, so I wasn't worried. Your dad started telling me a story and I looked up to listen, and you must have leaned over in that one second, because you fell off the bed! A lot of crying ensued, and Daddy and I both felt SO BAD 😭 😭 😭 Luckily you were fine, though :)
A few months ago I mentioned that your hair was falling out . . . well it seems that it all fell out at some point except for a patch on top. So people will still comment on how much hair you have, even though it's pretty thin and only an inch or so long almost everywhere, just because that patch of hair that is original is like 6 inches long! Your new hair is definitely lighter than your jet-black birth hair :)

You suck your thumb to fall asleep (I think I mentioned that last month), but you do it with a gun hand! So like thumb in mouth, index finger extended, and your other three fingers closed up. It's so funny :)
You discovered the mirror on your exersaucer! It is so funny to me when I catch you just staring at yourself! 😂 My vain little baby ;) But I mean, with good reason, because you are just stinkin' cute!

Some of your favorite things to do are growl and blow bubbles with your spit. You seriously get spit all over your face when you're blowing bubbles 😂
Just within the last week or so, you started slapping the ground and tables. Maybe you'll play the drums someday! :)

You're kind of obsessed with sitting in the grass. It's really long right now, and you love to play with it and try to eat it 😂

You recently discovered my wedding ring. Whenever you see the back of my hand, you grab my hand and bring the diamond to your mouth. It's so cute and funny :)
You love "Popcorn Popping." When you're fussy, that's the first song I sing to you, and sometimes it helps calm you down :)

Love always,

Mama