8 months old

So this is really late in coming...but here we go.

Little Miss Kennedy turned 8 months old on June 4th. We were at Emerald Isle at the time, and she was rockin' out on her first beach trip.

Height/Weight: 22 lbs, maybe. We haven't had an official weight in a while. All we know is she's getting h.e.a.v.y. No idea how long she is. But seriously, the kid is almost the same height and weight as most of our almost 2 year old friends.

Eating: She's the best eater ever. She eats like a hobbit. You know the style: first breakfast, second breakfast, noonsies, lunch, dinner, second dinner. Recently she has decided that she would like to feed herself, thank you very much, so we have moved almost entirely to finger foods rather than purees. The other day I fed her a puff and she took it out of her mouth and fed it to herself again. Um, yeah. She's THAT kid. She's also still nursing like 4 or 5 times a day. I continue just to nurse her whenever she'd like. Sometimes that assumes a schedule and sometimes not at all. She still loves sweet potatoes and pretty much all fruits. Bread was the first food she could feed herself. She likes cheese, but dislikes yogurt and cottage cheese. She hasn't met a food from my plate she didn't like, so she'll gobble up veggies that way.

Sleeping: Depends on the day you happen to ask. At the beach it was horrific. Now we're back to our typical routine. She's had a few nights where she's only woken up once, but mostly she's still up a few times a night. She nurses and goes back to sleep easily. And we're pretty sure that she feels entitled to snuggling in our bed after about 3am. There seems to be some kind of switch that occurs around that time. I probably should mind...but she's so sweet when she snuggles in and snoozes with me. Napping, I'm happy to report, has gotten a lot better. She takes longer naps during the day (around 1-2 hours). She wakes up for the day between 6 and 6:30 and stays up for 2 hours and then naps. Then she's up for 3 hours and then naps. Depending on how long the second nap is, and what time it is when she wakes up, she may or may not go down for a third nap. She goes to bed sometime between 7 and 8:30. Third nap = later bedtime. We still put her in the bath at the same time each night, and then just let her play until it's clearly bedtime.

Playing: She loves anything that she can bang together to make noise. Her favorite toy, by far, is her "having a ball" ladybug. She can place the balls inside it herself and then waits (impatiently) for the toy to spit them back out. She can also work her giraffe-a-laugh. She loves to play with Daddy's cell phone and all things that are not actually toys. The kitchen seems to be the best place to find "not toys" to play with. She moves backward quite well and happily can sit herself up from her belly. Forward, as the previous post shows, is a work in progress. She has no desire to attempt the "army crawl." I mean, really, who would want to stay on their belly?!  She LOVES to have her hands held so she can walk around. She can stand by herself against a wall, table, etc. She is really good at getting from sitting to her knees and we've seen her pull all the way to standing a couple of times, but it could hardly be considered a regular thing at this stage of the game. If she could, she'd run around the playground with the big kids, and she doesn't understand why Mom won't just let her go so she can play. She loves to swing and we make it a daily part of our routine.

Clothes: 12 month pajamas, some 9 month clothes, some 12 month clothes. The occasional larger outfit. She wears size 3 diaper still...but I'm starting to believe we might be sizing up sometime soon...