Midsummer Update

The summer is zipping by with lots of good, hot weather which mean more excuses to head outdoors and soak in some vitamin D. It's been a stressful and busy few weeks with a few not so fun non-baby related things to deal with. I won't bore you with it but boy is it hard to find a balance for all the priorities in your life.

8.5 month update: (can't believe she's that age already!)

Growth
At our 8 month doctor checkup, Sofia was just 17lbs and did not grow in height by much either. She's still this tiny little gal that fits into her 6 month clothes hehe (I'm not complaining about this one) However, her plateau in growth did concern me because it leads me to think she isn't drinking or eating enough. I now understand why parents have such a tough time with feeding their children. It starts from when they are breastfed as newborns. You never know how much they are getting from you. I am still struggling with this and it's tough because Sofia now refuses to feed either because she is distracted, wants to just sip and go play or her teeth are coming in. I can't tell so I sometimes have to force her back on but only for her to pull off soon after. So comes the issue with supplementing. She is currently refusing the bottle even if I feed it to her which is a change from before. I guess it only took a few battles of will with forcing her on the bottle before she outright refused. I guess she won this one...

Feeding
It's much more difficult to feed her nowadays. She's a little more pickier; prefers soft chunks of food instead of mushy purees. It seems to be a bit disorganized with the whole meal logistics. I don't quite have a meal routine down for Sofia yet so every meal, I wonder, "what should she eat?" Perhaps I should invest in a good baby recipe book. On Friday, I took the plunge and introduced Nutrios and bread and she loves it. Just a weekend and she's a pro at grabbing the Nutrio(s) with her fingers and ungracefully placing it into her mouth. She even figured out how to reach in the snack trap to grab it. I'm impressed. To date, she's able to eat Nutrios, bread, cheese, yogurt, soft califlower/carrots/peas/meats so it looks like no more purees for her. What amazes me is she is gumming this stuff cuz she only has two teeth.

Since introducing the finger foods though, I've noticed her refusing to eat from a spoon. Our mealtime drags on and on for 45 mins to a hour. It's been tough trying to coax her into eating. She would see the spoon and just wave her hands in front of her and turn her head! Very frustrating as we have gotten food flung everywhere from my attempts at feeding. Thus, back to the basics of toast/nutrios, apple, carrots, rice cereal for now until I have figured out how to deal with this.

Crawling
I love her mobility. She looks so happy to have the ability to roll around and get to wherever her curiosity takes her. This gal is a fast crawler. She is doing the crawl on her tummy but uses both hands and feet. She has started to take a few crawls on her hands and knees and it's neat watching her do planks and downward dog. She follows me into the other rooms and is getting her hands on wires, vents and just about anything in her reach. We bought out the playyard and place her there when I'm cooking. Luckily for me, she will tolerate playing there for 15-20 mins.

Character
She has a smile and giggle/laugher that will just melt your heart. She lights up when she sees mummy/daddy and just gives us the biggest smiles during potty breaks. She is one vocal and passionate girl. When she is not pleased with us, boy does she let us have it. Another communication method for her is the raseberries; happy or upset, we get a face full of spit/food so watch out! Even right before she sleeps, she would make lots of sounds using her throat and keep at it until she runs out of breath. I've also caught her making this "clicking" sound using her tongue so I copy her only for her to repeat the sound back at me. She takes her fingers and plays with her mouth to make a "bububububl" sound and the most special of all is she has learned to lean in to give a kiss. I definitely get a full 'lean in with one hand touching my cheek' kiss and she makes this excited yell afterwards which is very cute. With Rob and others, it's a bit of a hit or miss depending on her mood.

Potty
It is still hit or miss with catching her pees but can't complain considering she can pretty much hold her poop until the potty. We have also started putting her in a cloth diaper overnight because she didn't seem to have a very heavy diaper in the morning and so far no overnight leaks with the Bum Genius and FuzziBunz so far. I love cutting down on disposible diaper usage yet again!

Misc.

-Current favorite song: Pat-a-cake
-While drinking water from a cup, she's figured out that she can blow bubbles! Now if only we can transfer the skill to use in the pool

I love my Sofia so much!!!