The Adventures of Rosa and Eliza: Rosa's 8th month

Tomorrow is Rosa's 8-month birthday! My goal was to get caught up by this date so that after that I could post Rosa's comings and goings as they come and go. Of course we will be having cupcakes for the birthday... Rosa and I will go pick them out tomorrow.

Rosa's eighth month has been all about increasing mobility. She could scoot backwards as of sometime around Christmas, when I once turned around to find her missing... she was under the futon - everything but her head, that is. (I have since purchased under-the-bed boxes to put under the futon - great for storing her little blankets and for keeping her out of there!) But in the first few days of this eighth month, one day she started moving forward, and as every parent knows, the world changes on that day. You can no longer put her on a blanket while you run and get a bib and expect to find her there when you get back. On that day, I started strategizing how to keep her out of the power cables, tight spots, and other hazards, then started ordering gates.

By the end of this month, she still doesn't do an official crawl, although she spends a lot of time on her hands and knees, but when she wants to move, she slaps her palms on the floor as far out as she can reach, then pulls her prone little body up to her hands. She can move pretty fast when she wants to.

The other thing she just started doing 3 days ago is pulling her self up to do furniture standing. Back on February 15, she stood up by herself against Jeff's leg for the first time, but wasn't fully standing straight. A week later, I turned around to find her standing up, holding on to the edge of her toy bin. She wasn't too stable, so I helped her sit back down. But today, when she was standing against the couch, I let her "dismount" all by herself (ready to catch her of course), and found that the butt hit first, followed by the hands, and last the head. So it wasn't too catastrophic. She now regularly pulls herself up on the toy bin and often reaches in to grab a book or toy.

In the language department, Rosa took a couple week break from saying "Mama," but seems to be back at it with a vengeance now. Still no "Dada" (poor Dada!), but there's lots of singing and vocalizing, and even gargling!

Other memorable occasions this month include:

A visit from Grandpa Frank