To my precious 8 month old baby girls,
I better begin this letter with an apology. You may notice (in several years) that there
are no 6 or 7 month letters. Totally my
fault. You see, you keep me very
busy. In addition to your sweet smiles
and poopy diapers, when you turned 6 months, I was busy finishing the school
year, and when you turned 7 months, we had just returned from a long vacation in
New York and were busy preparing for your sister, Medley, to arrive. Excuses, excuses, I know! Busy, busy, busy. Just like I call you now… busy, busy, busy!
We have a lot to catch up on. There are all kinds of things you can do
since your last letter. You sit! You
scoot! You eat! You sleep in your crib at night! You poop in disposable
diapers! You play like there is no tomorrow!
I’ll start with some developmental milestones. Right before we left for New York (right
around your 6 month birthday), you started to sort of sit by yourself. There was a lot of propping up and a whole
bunch of tipping over (I may have googled “Protective Baby Helmet” a time or
two before you were champion sitters).
Nowadays, you pretty much never fall over when you are sitting. You can even go from sitting to your belly,
to your back, back to your belly, etc. You can’t quite sit yourself up from lying
on the floor yet, but I have a feeling by next month you will be able to do
so. Both of you babble quite a bit, but
Sophia is definitely the talker in the group.
You say “dadadadadadada” and “yayayayayay” all the time. Annie, you spend more of your time letting
out squeals than actually forming sounds, but that’s okay because it’s
adorable. Annabel, you are just learning
to crawl and you are army crawling all over the place. Soph, you get up on all fours really well and
rock back and forth, but for the most part, you roll yourself around or scoot
yourself backwards instead of forward.
I’m confident that within the next few days you will be crawling, too!
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| Sophie Learning to Sit |
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| Annie Learning to Sit |
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| The Sophie Crawl |
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| Annie gets stuck crawling! |
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| YAY! We can sit up! |
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| Trying Mom's Peas |
You both really enjoy eating. I puree all of your food, and you eat it
up. You also love your Baby Mum
Mums. Sophia, you actually eat and chew
them and get so excited when you see me coming with them. You throw your hands out and wave them up and
down and quite literally grab them from my hands. Both of you also like Carrot sticks to soothe
your gums, cucumber sticks (with the seeds cut off), and you LOVE watermelon,
apple, peaches, and banana in your mesh feeder. You even tried a pickle at Bird Dog BBQ, and
you both made funny faces but kept coming back for more. Sophie actually says
“mmmmmmmmmm” when she eats. Annabel, you
have the funniest way of showing us that you are done eating. You close your mouth just as tightly as you
can, and almost try to twist your neck off burying it into your high chair,
away from the spoon. Oh, one more tidbit
about eating. Right now, you eat in the
nude. I don’t want to get your clothes
dirty and stained, so we always get you naked.
We always joke that when you are older you are going to strip down to
nothing every time you want to eat.
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| The full body bib! |
Sophia, you got your very first tooth on May 10. That was pretty early considering you were
born 6 weeks early and were barely 5 months old when you got your tooth! Both of your bottom two teeth came in first,
right at the same time, and just a few days ago, your third bottom tooth came
in (this is super strange because that tooth isn’t supposed to come in until
you are 13 months!). You are a pretty
good teether, and you just really want to be held when you have a tooth coming
through. Annabellers, your first teeth
had some impeccable timing…they showed up the day we were flying home from New
York at the end of June. I was a nervous
wreck, afraid you were going to throw a fit the entire way home. But it turns out you are a pretty good teether,
too! You popped both of your teeth the
day we got home, and even refused the Tylenol we tried to give you before you
got on the plane.
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| Happy Annie on the Plane! |
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| Happy Sophie on the Plane! |
Speaking of planes, you took your very first plane trip in
June! We spent 3 weeks in New York. For 2 of those weeks, daddy was gone hiking
and camping in the San Juan Mountains with Uncle John, Pat, and Greg. Then, he met us in New York for
vacation. I was so worried about flying
with you two! You are such good-natured
babies, and you are always so sweet, but you hadn’t spent a whole lot of time
outside of the house or outside of your routine, so I wasn’t sure how you would
act in an airplane with all of that hustle and bustle. But you were SO good. So good I couldn’t even
believe it. On the way there, you barely
even made one peep. People “ooooo”ed and
“ahhhh”ed over you like crazy. Sophie,
when we were waiting to get off the plane in Albany, everyone was looking at
you and talking to you, and you got just a little bit overwhelmed and started
to cry, but that was it! On the way
back, you both did just as well, despite it being a much longer flight with a
connection and late at night as opposed to an early morning flight like we had
on the way out there.
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| On the plane on the way home! |
You were able to meet so many of your relatives when you
traveled to New York, and everyone loved you!
You met your great grandma and so many of your aunts and uncles! You even got to meet some of your second cousins,
like Aubrey, Remi, Ryan, and Mikayla.
You swam in your Uncle Remi’s pool several times and visited the Utica
Zoo! We had a blast!
When we arrived home from New York, something really sad
happened in Colorado Springs. The Waldo
Canyon fire was burning when we arrived home, and the night after we got home,
it burned down hundreds of houses. It
was a really devastating time for our city, and because of all the smoke, you
had to stay inside for several days. It
was so incredibly sad.
When you were about to turn 7 months old, you had to stop
nursing and take a bottle with formula full time. I was really sad about this, but thankfully,
you both did great and never seemed to be too bothered by it.
You are both on a great nap schedule. You go down anywhere from 2-3 hours after you
wake up for 1.5-2.5 hours. Then, you
stay awake for about 3 hours and go down again for 1.5-2.5 hours depending on
how long your first nap was. You do all
of your sleeping in your crib now, even at night. This was super hard for your mom, but once
you got your hip braces off and could roll onto your tummy, I knew it was time
to move you out of the co-sleeper.
Annabel, the day we got to New York, you decided you wanted to be a
tummy sleeper. I don’t think I slept for
a good 3 days because of this. I was so nervous! Now, I can’t prevent it, and as soon as we
put you in your crib, you roll to your tummy.
Thankfully, Sophie, you gave me a break and waited until we got home to
learn to roll to your tummy and sleep there.
So, as soon as we returned home from New York, you officially slept in
your cribs every night, and the co-sleepers were packed up and put into the
basement. Sophia, you sleep great every
night, almost never waking up from the time we put you to bed until about 7 in
the morning. Annie, we haven’t
pinpointed the reason yet, but you still wake up at least once on most
nights. You need to get about 30 ounces
of formula during the day, or you wake up wanting a bottle. If you get your 30 ounces, you end up waking
up soaking wet needing a diaper and clothes change. We are trying some nighttime diapers tonight
to see if *fingers crossed* that makes a difference. Most every night and every nap, we put you in
your crib still awake and you put yourself to sleep. We have a great bedtime routine, and both
daddy and I really enjoy that time with you and each other. On most nights, you get a nice bath, get
lotion on, read books, and then have a bottle with cuddles and go to sleep. I love to come and get you up in the morning
because you are always just beyond thrilled to see me. You are always facing each other in your
cribs, and as soon as you notice or hear me, you whip yourself around, and
start pounding and kicking your arms and legs on the mattress like crazy. You both squeal with delight and give me huge
smiles. It is so fun!
Neither of you cry very often unless you are tired or
hungry. Annabel, you are a little bit
aggressive toward your sister and her toys sometimes, and occasionally you make
her cry when you steal a toy. It’s okay
because I know you don’t quite understand yet.
Both of you are starting to show a little bit of stranger danger and
separation anxiety. If dad or I come
near you and you are fussy, you will throw your arms out to be picked up. It’s so, so cute. Sometimes when you are nearing a nap or need
some cuddles, you will make your way over to me and crawl up on my lap to
sit. Just this morning, daddy let me
sleep in a little bit. When I got up,
you were both playing contently in your playpen. I came up to you and said
“good morning, sweet girls!” and you both waved your hands and huge smiles
spread across your faces. I gave you
both kisses, then went to the kitchen to get something to drink, and both of
you burst into tears and threw yourself against the side of the playpen as if
you were trying to escape and come and get me. It was so sad, yet so sweet. I
felt so loved!
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| Annie and her toys |
You love to play! You
love to jump and play with your toys or me and dad. It makes you laugh when we put a burp cloth
over your face and say “Where’s Sophie (or Annie)?” You yank it off with a huge smile on your
face then kind of clap your hands together and wave them around. It’s adorable. You also like to make music with your little
music table. You put every single thing
that you can get your hands on into your mouth.
Annabel, just a few days ago, you learned to pull yourself up on your
toy basket and figured out how to tip it over.
Oh man, what a mess we have to clean up these days! Both of you really love to swing in the baby
swing at the park. You sit back to back,
and I swear you could swing all day. You love walks, and you love to swim. Water is pretty much your best friend. You
loved swimming in your Uncle Remi’s pool, and now you love taking baths without
your baby bathtub.
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| Big girls in the bathtub! |
Medley came to visit you this month, and you really loved
her. She would put on puppet shows, sing
you songs, and do pacifier rescue missions at night (you only take your paci when
you sleep, but you also throw them out of your cribs). Every time we went in the car somewhere she
would ask if her mission was “awake or asleep.”
If her mission was awake, anytime one of you would get drowsy, I would
hear her shout her favorite silly song right now, “DAH, Dah, dah, dah, dah
CIRCUS AFRO.” It woke you up every single time and often made you giggle! We went on a lot of walks to the park
together where you enjoyed swinging together.
You are really going to miss her now that she is leaving.
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| Farmer's Market with Medley |
Both of you have learned to share experiences with us. When we laugh, it makes you laugh. When we are having fun, it is obvious that
you are enjoying yourself. You sense
expression and emotion now, which is so wonderful and fulfilling. When you are crying, oftentimes, a simple
song I make up can soothe you.
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| Big girls in high chairs at Noodles |
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| We love Costco! |
We take you out all kinds of places, now. You have been to many Farmer’s Markets, lots
of malls, and Target at least a dozen times. You sit in high chairs at
restaurants and in the carts at stores.
You love it, and you get so much attention. You got a lot of attention in your stroller,
but now that you are out and “on display” people just can’t get enough of
you. We get oodles of comments like
“Double Trouble” or “You’ve got your hands full” or “Busy mama,” and sometimes
I resent those comments because I feel like they aren’t acknowledging what an
absolutely rewarding job I have raising the two of you (and usually, you are
doing nothing but sitting and smiling, certainly not warranting those
comments). The truth is, you are AMAZING
babies. My favorite is when people say
things like “You are so blessed” or “double blessing!” People ALWAYS tell us that the two of you are
the cutest things they have ever seen.
Yep, I agree. (When we were at
the outlet mall shopping for new school clothes for Medley, this strange old
man asked if he could kiss one of you. Daddy said “NO THANKS” and the old man
gave him such a dirty look. So creepy!)
I have so much fun with you, every single day. You are the light of my life. Sometimes, when you sleep too long, I truly
miss you, and as soon as I hear one of you start to make noise, I jump up,
announce that “MOMMY’S COMING” and fly down the hallway to come see you. Sometimes I just can’t stand your cuteness,
and I laugh and squeal with you. I love
you both ever so much, and as always, I can’t wait to see what you do
next. I’m certain it will be something marvelous.
As one of our favorite nighttime books says, “I love you to
the moon…and back.”
Love,
Mommy
Mommy
