8 Months

Samantha learned several new tricks this month. She can now wave hello and goodbye (and any other time she feels like waving). She can also turn the pages of a book. She's also a lot more mobile - and dangerous. She can army-crawl her way up the 4 inch step from the living room, which means we find her in the kitchen or halfway down the hallway if we leave her in the playroom alone for too long. She can pull herself up onto her knees and sometimes even up to her feet. We are lowering her crib mattress today because she has learned to pull herself up so she can see out and it won't be long before she pulls up to a standing position and topples out of the crib! Here's a picture of her pulling herself up to chew on the side of the table in the play room. And here's a video of her going up, and down the step.


She's started eating meat this month. I made a turkey, spinach and sweet potato "superfoods" puree for her a few weeks ago, and this week she has chicken and apple on the menu. We also tried finger foods for the first time (aside from celery sticks and apple slices).I cut up small pieces of banana for her the other day and she could pick them up, but didn't really get the part about putting it in her mouth. I think the pieces were too small. Next time I'll try slightly bigger pieces. She's finally gaining some weight, too. She went to the doctor last week for a skin infection behind her ear (impetigo) and she weighed 15 pounds 13 ounces. That still seems really light to me, and I'm not sure what the percentile is, but at least she's gaining weight. All in all she's a very happy, outgoing baby, and we're having a great time watching her learn all these new tricks!

Lawrence and I got to go out for a real date night last Friday, a belated Valentine's Day dinner. Our daycare center had Parent's Night Out, which they offer every month. We've tried to take advantage of it 3 times, but this is the first successful time when no one was sick. It was nice to have an adult dinner that didn't have to be rushed (or cooked by one of us). Our next night out will likely be a Lady Gaga concert that we won tickets to at the end of March. Our company has a suite at the local concert (and basketball) arena and they give away tickets to many of the events in a raffle, and I just happened to win the raffle for Lady Gaga tickets! I think the show will be very entertaining. It's on a weekday night, so we won't be able to use Parent's Night Out, so I guess we'll have to find a babysitter.

Anyway, that's the news for now.