Hellobee

It has been absolute madness in the Wagon house lately… even more than usual. I was sick for 2.5 weeks straight and even though we’re all well again, we’re still playing catch up. There was no cooking, cleaning, or laundry done for almost 3 weeks straight, so now we’re trying to catch up one hour at a time and it’s tough!! I wish we could just take a day to clean the house from top to bottom and catch up on all these projects looming over my head. But alas, life goes on and there just ain’t time.

At 8 months LMW is still not consistently sitting up, but she has figured out how to scoot forward and is quite delighted with herself. She gets places pretty fast and reaches whatever she’s aiming for, whether it be a toy, mommy’s necklace, or her brother’s pant leg. She will sit up and play, but doesn’t show too much interest in staying sitting up because she’ll just topple over or backwards, then flip onto her belly so she can scoot around.

LMW is babbling all the time now! Babbles and learning how to talk is one of my very favorite parts of raising a baby, and watching her “talk” is just so adorable. Her favorite syllable right now is “da”, so she calls for dada quite often. At least, we like to think so. She also says baba and wawa, and every now and then I’ll get a mama.

Eating

LMW’s doing excellent with her purees and has graduated to stage 2 purees. It seems like she likes pretty much everything, but lately if she’s not that hungry, she’ll start to complain about halfway through a jar. She absolutely LOVES puffs and I think she gets impatient with the spoonfuls of purees. She’s super quick about getting puffs into her mouth and watches us intently as we eat, so I think she is anxious to start eating regular food just like us. I didn’t start Wagon Jr. on table foods until 11 months, but maybe we will try some baby-led weaning with LMW since she seems to love feeding herself!

She has also graduated to fast flow nipples without an issue and downs 8 oz bottles at bedtime. Her daytime bottles are still usually between 4-6 ounces. She seems to take after mommy in that she doesn’t eat much when she first wakes up in the morning.

Now that she’s eating solids three times a day, her poops are much more regular. She has pooped in the bath a few times… I really hope this doesn’t become a habit!

Sleeping

Oh, my baby girl is such a good sleeper. I think I can finally say this with confidence and not worry that I will jinx her. She has no trouble falling asleep on her own for naps or bedtime, and she soothes herself back to sleep with her lovey. Sometimes she wakes crying and her lovey is so far away in her crib that we go in and give it back to her. But for the most part she’ll wake up once or maybe twice each night, cry for a few seconds, find her lovey then fall back asleep. Some nights she’s awake in her crib for almost an hour! She rolls around and plays with her lovey, picks at the breathable bumper, sticks her arms and legs outside the crib slats, and eventually falls back asleep on her own.

She also sleeps great on the go, which is a necessity for us on weekends now. She is even able to fall asleep in the stroller while we’re at church, if I push the stroller back and forth. I remember walking around with WJ in the stroller for an entire church service trying to get him to fall asleep. But with LMW I can sit and enjoy church and just push her back and forth, and she falls asleep and stays asleep. Basically, if it’s time for her to sleep or nap, she has no problems falling asleep. We even took both kids to an afternoon/evening wedding and she fell asleep in my arms during the reception. I transferred her to the stroller and she stayed asleep through a crazy loud dance party!

Here’s a typical day for LMW.

7:00am – wake up, 4 oz baby food
8:00am – 5 oz bottle
10:00am – 3 oz bottle, first nap (between 1-2 hours)
1:00pm – 5 oz bottle
3:00pm – 3 oz bottle, second nap (between 30 mins – 2 hours)
5:00pm – 4 oz baby food
6:00pm – bath, 8 oz bottle, bedtime

This is the same exact schedule I wrote up for her 7 month update!

Wagon Jr.

These days WJ can be super whiny and have a pretty bad attitude (his favorite phrase seems to be “but I don’t want to!” stated quite emphatically). I try to nip it in the bud by speaking to him sternly at the first sign of a bad attitude. I crouch down to his level, ask him to look me in the eyes, and ask him if that’s a good attitude and if that’s being a good boy. He is usually very quick to acknowledge that he has a bad attitude, and when I ask him if he’s going to have a good attitude, he says yes. This close communication and understanding has really brought us closer together, and I cherish every hug and kiss because I know the day is soon coming when his response will be “no, I don’t want to have a good attitude.”

He has started making his stuffed animals, especially his lion blankie, speak in high voices. They have conversations with each other and they also ask for me– “mumma, mumma!” I think he gets that from a friend at school since he’s never called me mama. But I love it when he makes his blankie cry for “mumma” and I immediately jump to give blankie a kiss to make him feel better. It’s a game that delights us both!

Food is still a battle, but he does try new things and every now and then he will take to something new very quickly. He’s had garlic bread a few times, and now when I give it to him and ask him if it’s yummy, he says “I love it.”

Sibling Love

WJ and LMW are still getting along beautifully. Sometimes he’ll notice her playing with one of his instruments and he’ll cry “don’t touch my guitar!” But he does the same thing when one of the dogs is sniffing around his instruments as well. It’s really more him having a bad attitude than being angry at LMW. So far, at least. He sometimes gets upset when she’s not around, and he’ll freely give her kisses and hugs, but most of the time he’s too busy goofing off to really notice her.

LMW is constantly, intently watching WJ. Sometimes if he’s talking and he starts to say something in a silly way over and over again, she’ll laugh. We tell him to say it again to make her laugh again, and we tell him “WJ, LMW thinks you’re so funny!” He really gets a kick out of that.

Thanks for catching up with us this month!