"Miss"-cellany

Miss is nearly 8 months old now. She gets funnier every day. She is able to sit up by herself now, and does this over and over and over. She seems so pleased with herself! She isn't crawling yet, but she sure is trying hard. She can't seem to decide if she wants to crawl on hands and knees or in more of a bear-crawl position on her feet instead of her knees. She goes back and forth between these two positions, rocking back and forth, and balancing with one arm forward and the opposite leg sticking out behind her. This inevitably ends in a face plant, and then she just pushes herself up onto her little butt and plays for a few seconds before starting the whole process over again. She is also working on pulling herself up to standing, and will walk if we hold her hands. She loves to bob up and down if we hold her upright, and jumps like crazy when we put her in her Jumperoo.

She has three teeth. The two middle bottom teeth and the top tooth just to the left of the middle. She looks a bit snaggle-toothed, but in an adorable kind of way. She loves to eat solid foods and eats three meals a day now. Her favorites are squash (winter and summer varieties) and sweet potatoes. She also likes apples, pears, and prunes. She doesn't really like peas or carrots, though I did get her to eat peas for lunch today by mixing them with prunes. I know, gross, right? But she liked it! She loves to eat Cheerios and her pincer grasp is rapidly improving. I have started trying to teach her sign language. In particular we're working on words/signs like "more," "eat," "drink," "water," and "milk." Of course she's not signing yet, but she at least looks at me now when I do it.

She is also developing quite a fun little personality. She makes the funniest faces and has very expressive eyebrows. She has also learned that if she makes a grunt-yell noise she can get her dad and me to respond to her in some way that she seems to find enjoyable. Last night I listened to her making this noise and her daddy tickling her in response, back and forth, for almost 10 minutes. She laughs a lot and has learned to wave. She is quite entertaining on flights, as she loves to flirt with strangers. Occasionally we can get her to give a kiss. She is also experimenting with tantrums and various other ways of expressing her displeasure about things. It is really quite adorable and kind of hard not to laugh at her.

Overall, I am having an absolute blast being her mom. She makes me laugh multiple times every day. I have never had a harder, more rewarding, or better job than this one.