Movin' and Groovin'

This little lady is making some big strides these days. Last weekend she went from crawling to sitting on her own, all the sudden. Her daycare note last Monday said "went from her tummy to sitting all by herself for the first time here." I like that they are sweet enough to include the word "here", which indicates she's done it at home and we've seen it. It's very, very kind. There are lots of struggles with being a working mother, but one of the toughest is knowing that your babe may be doing some of her firsts away from you during the day. Luckily, Sophia's had the manners to show us her moves before putting them on display for daycare. Such a polite little lady!

Little miss sits like a big girl all the sudden!

This used to be one of my favorite ways to sit!

We got her to really crawl (instead of the army crawl she's been doing) last Sunday....just a few scoots...by leaving her in only her diaper on the wood floor. The girl (understandably) does not want that cold floor on her bare tummy so she decided to give the real crawling thing a try. She made it a little ways, and it gave her the courage to try it again the next night and the next and the next. (I was going to upload a video, but the blogger app is not my friend, and I'll never get this post up if I wait any longer....already been waiting entirely too long. It's not even that great of a crawling clip...more something silly parents like to watch over and over.)

When we took her 8 month pics on the eighth of the month (right....I was an entire week behind. Her eight month "birthday" fell on a Monday. I knew I should have taken the pictures over the weekend, but that would mean I was aging her by an entire day, and this momma does not like to age her babies a minute more than she has to so I decided to wait until Monday to take the picture. And, wouldn't you know, Monday was crazy and busy. And so was Tuesday and Wednesday, and then eight days after she really turned eight months, I finally got it together enough to take the pictures. It's funny because I felt bad if I was a few days late taking Aiden's monthly pictures. This time around I'm just aiming to get it done at the first half of the month before she's at the 0.5 mark...i.e. 8.5 months. So I'd say this month was a success.)

This is literally the face she wakes up with. Diva Sophia has come
a long way from her early days.

Anyway, serious digression. Soph weighted in at just over 14lbs at the beginning of the month....14.1 one day, 14.3 the next. So, really pushing the scales.....We will do a real weight check next month when we go for our nine month appointment. She moved into size 2 diapers solely because I ran out of size 1 and have boxes of 2's from my showers last year. One of the nice things about not knowing baby's gender is that you get plenty of diapers....allowing me to spend money on some of the more fun things. 

We dropped Soph's "late night" feed this month, where I get her still-sleeping self out of bed when I'm getting ready to go to sleep, and I nurse her before putting her back down. It's a little sad....those were some of my favorite snuggles because she was snoozing and so cuddly and I could just stare at her precious baby self. But she was ready....and part of this parent thing is letting go of things when the time is right....even if I don't like it. 

Since about a month ago, every week seems to present something new and exciting in this little lady's life. Hopefully I can keep the blog adequately updated without writing a novella every time!

A Few of My Favorite Things

The fact that Aiden loves to wear our shoes around the house. 

That Sophia props her legs up on the front of the stroller like it's her footrest. 

Aiden's enjoyment of Saturday morning trips to the doughnut store....and his consistency in ordering at all places. (He'll take the pink one.)

Clapping....Sophia's newfound trick. 

But most of all....snuggles. Nighttime snuggles from my girl and morning snuggles from my boy. Soph and I sneak in a few minutes of alone time every evening at bedtime to sing and nurse and pray. And on the best of those days she falls into a deep sleep in my arms and let's me snuggle her until I have to force myself to do something besides rock and cuddle for the evening. Then in the morning Aiden wakes up like me...slowly. So he'll crawl into my arms and just let me hold him...and I'm reminded of how big he's getting and how I'll snuggle him every morning as long as he'll let me. He can be 18 and I'll still let him sit in my lap.  Yeah, snuggles are my absolute most favorite. They are the entire reason I started writing this post...but then I thought of a few other things that regularly bring big smiles to my face, plus I don't have any snuggle pictures...just the mental ones I've stored away...but since you can't see those and a post with no pictures isn't all that fun, I figured I could perhaps include a thing or two that fills up all the storage space on my phone...