Isabel Therese Nine Months

Dear Isabel - This has been such a fun month to watch you grow and change! First of all, you are crawling all over the place now. And pretty fast. You are putting EVERYTHING in your mouth. We have to watch you like a hawk, as they always say. We certainly had a scary moment with you this month - I was in the kitchen doing some dishes, and you and your sister were playing in the living room. I thought everything was pretty safe, but all of the sudden you started screaming and I ran in expecting that Madeline had grabbed a toy from you. But there you were, holding one end of a computer cord in your mouth and the other end plugged in at the outlet. Yikes! Bad parenting moment, little girl. But fortunately you were fine - I called the doctor right away, and James found out in 30 seconds via google that power surges through computer cords aren't very strong. Enough to give you a scary shock, but nothing to really harm you at all. I guess you weren't the first baby that has done that, given the number of online forums dedicated to the topic.

Speaking of hanging with your sister, you two have really started to develop a new relationship. Your interactions are much more playful now. You love to play the "paci game" with your sister, where you grab the paci out of her mouth, you both crack up laughing, she grabs it and puts it back in her mouth, and you do it again. It's pretty funny to watch. Madeline also loves to play peek-a-boo with you when you're in your high chair - she hides under the tray and pops up, and you laugh your heart out. Isabel, you also love to be doing whatever your sister is doing. You want to be play with the toys that Madeline has, and if she takes them away from you then you make a big fuss! We're having to try to teach both of you to share a little better. But we are seeing so many hints of the great friendship we hope and pray the two of you develop as you grow. 

You are eating a lot more "big people" food now, in very small bites of course. It is harder and harder to feed you with a spoon, because you'd rather pick up your own food. Your favorite foods right now are cheese and cheerios. You also have started to get upset when you see us eating food that we won't give to you. Just tonight, we were eating some home-made pizza and you were making a fuss all throughout dinner because you wanted to have some too. All in good time, little one!

Isabel Therese Eight Months

Isabel Therese - you turned 8 months while you were home in WA state visiting family! It was a lovely time in WA, with hot, sunny days and lots of time with loved ones. You were quite sick when we traveled home - you'd been up to 104 degrees, couldn't keep any food down, and were the most miserable we'd ever seen you. Poor baby. Poor us - not much sleep and a difficult day traveling home!  But after a week or so, you rallied and finally you were back to your normal self. Unfortunately by then, you'd developed a bad habit of waking up several times each night. And we didn't feel like doing sleep training at Nana and Grandpa's house was a good idea. So that was a difficult part of month 8 for us.

But you did all sorts of fun things this month! We went to the mountains with Nana and Grandpa, and we roasted marshmallows, went swimming in the pool, went on a hike in which we ran into a Mama bear and her two baby cubs (scariest hike of my life, I sprinted with you strapped to my chest!), spent lots of time in Ama and Opa's backyard, hung out on the Pacific, and fully enjoyed July. And I finally finished your quilt that I've been working on for months, thanks to the help of your Ama. The graphic Charley Harper prints are so fun, I hope you enjoy it!

You have officially started crawling, although not very fast. You'd still rather just have us pick you up and move you where you'd like to go. You love to be held and cuddled! 

And of course you're sister can't stand not to join the fun!

Isabel Therese is 7 Months!

(Side-note - wrote most of this post a couple months ago, just finally getting to adding the photos!)

Wow, little girl, over halfway to 1 year! At the start of this month, I started a new phase with you and your big sister - I'm home for the summer, and only going back to work in August on a very part-time basis. Yay! I have LOVED staying home with you girls every day, playing and adventuring and back-yard pooling and play-dating. Such fun! It's also fun for me to get into my own daily rhythms with you girls. When I was working every day and just home on the weekends with you two, I didn't really have a daily routine because weekends were always somewhat different. So I have been learning your daily rhythms, and trying to get some consistency in your nap times.

We also started you with solid foods this month! You've done pretty well so far, first up was rice cereal. We also moved you into the nursery with your sister! Well, sort of. We always start you out there in the evening, and then sometimes we end up moving you back into our room early morning if you're being fussy and we don't want to wake Madeline up. And we go back and forth for naps as well, since Madeline is more likely to wake up from your crying during nap time than the middle of the night. One night recently, it was probably 2am and you woke up (wanting to eat, because you are still eating a few times/night, bummer!) and Madeline woke up. She started talking about getting up with us, and I told her to go back to bed; that I was just taking you out for a bit because you were having a hard time. A few minutes later Madeline walked into our bedroom and said, "Mom, I just needed to get out for a bit because I'm having a rough time." Ha! You two make us laugh. 

This month, girl, you have become a mover! You're not crawling yet, but you've reached that phase where you land all over the place via rolling and sliding. I put you down on your play mat one minute, and then I turn around and you're halfway across the room! So needless to say, we've had to be careful what's out on the floor around you. We have also brought out more of Madeline's old baby toys that you can engage now, ones with lots of spinning things and gadgets to grab onto. It's so fun to watch your little mind process how these toys are working, and your eye-hand coordination improving. 

Another sweet thing you've started doing, is grabbing on tightly to me if I bend down to put your paci back in your mouth or something. Sometimes you just know that you want to be held, so you grab on to me and let me know that what you want is me, not some toy I'm trying to give you. Along with that, you've become slightly more difficult to put to sleep. We used to be able to just put you down in your crib, and you'd drift off to sleep. But you do that less easily now, because you are more cognizant of being left alone and just want to be held. 

Another new thing this month - you've started using a Lovie just like your big sister! We weren't really sure if we wanted you to have a paci or a Lovie since you're big sis is so attached to both, but here we are with you now attached to both. You started breaking out of your sleep sack swaddle because you move so much now, which has made it a lot harder for you to fall asleep. So cue the Lovie - which helps a lot. You grab onto the little blue puppy and snuggle with it while you fall asleep. As I recall, that was exactly the situation when we introduced a lovie to Madeline. Parents just do what they have to do sometimes to aid with sleeping!

You're auntie Emily came to visit this month as well, which was so fun! We went to the Farmer's Market, and the River Walk for a picnic, and all sorts of fun.

You sure are loved, sweet girl!