8 Months

8 months!!! How can our precious GEM be 3/4 of the way to 1 year?

I keep asking her to please slow down as I attempt to savor these moments but she continues to make advancements each day. John is predicting that she will walk earlier than any of our other children. I'd really prefer her to be like her big sister who sat contently playing on a blanket and waited until she was almost 18 months to walk. Not this little girl! She has become quite the explorer not ever wanting to sit still. Silly girl!

Grace learned to crawl last month but has perfected it over the month to the point where she is moving fast on all fours. I decided that I was going to try training her to stay on a blanket as I did with our first children. Well, that takes more time than I have so at this point I need to just get a gate to restrict her. Grace will spot a guitar or anything else on the other side of the room and make a beeline for it. I always wonder what the point of toys are. It is rare to find her playing with a "real" toy. We are back to trying to keep the floor super clean which is almost impossible with Miss Eagle Eyes.

And speaking of eyes -- Grace's eyes are changing faster than I recall with any of her siblings. It makes me wonder if they will go brown like Thomas's. Although I am hoping for green like my own. Our hazel-eyed children's eyes didn't turn until much later and I can't remember with my "chocolate-eyed" Thomas. But we definitely know she is not going to have blue eyes like her sister.

Grace is what some of her siblings call "little tiger" as she has a low growl. This morning when she saw her Daddy she flashed a huge smile and growled at him. For awhile there I was wondering when she would start to make more noises. She does a silent laugh and it looks like a belly laugh but with no sound. That was so strange to me. And usually by now the sounds of "g" or "d" are a commonly heard. But wouldn't you know it just in this past week suddenly Grace has found her voice and sounds are abundant I even heard "da da".

Gracie's favorite toy is my hair. Yikes! This girl is always reaching out to grab it, twirl it, and suck on it. Personally I'd think the flavor not too tasty but apparently that doesn't matter to a baby. Here is our selfie at Bay Beach arm reached up to grab hold of hair.

Sleep is something that Grace does not do well. It is getting much easier to calm her and get her to sleep than it had been. This month she will relax a bit easier and will fall asleep by rocking and singing her a song or saying "ssshhh....ssshhh....ssshhh". She nestles into some shoulders a little bit better than others but we all take turns. Fuzzy phone picture but you get the idea. I absolutely love watching her cuddle up with her brothers.

Of course it would be wonderful to sit and rock her all day. I do enjoy strapping Gracie on when I need to get things done and what a sweet view I have. What a little beauty!

Gracie is still not sleeping through the night which is funny since she did consistently two months ago but that stopped and now she has been waking once usually around 3 or 4 a.m. She is still in our room at night and we toss around having her in her crib in the room she shares but don't want Katie waking up. Grace is in her crib during naps or rather "catnaps". The mattress was not lowered and suddenly we found her kneeling in her crib so John immediately lowered it. Did you think that funny little Miss? :)

I am still nursing Grace every 3 hours and I suppose time between would increase if I would start feeding her solids. My take on that is the longer I can go without the added job of spooning in food the better. She is thriving and has enough chub that I know she isn't lacking. I did start giving Grace a banana in a mesh feeder and she does enjoy that. I tried putting in a cooked carrot and she wanted nothing to do with that. I then tried dicing it up a bit and putting it in with the banana but she figured out that trick and threw it down. In this picture Gracie also had a bit of pink eye or something like it. It never did get really goopy. Mama's milk in the eye and it cleared up wonderfully and never seemed to bother her.

And yet another accomplishment this month, she pulls herself up to STANDING!!! What? How can this be?

Last milestone -- Grace now has 4 teeth! The bottom left was last week. Top right a few days later and the top left today. Can you see where it is swollen? What a sweet happy smile. No, Miss Grace isn't happy all the time although she does put on a good show. But we love our precious Gracie more than words can ever express.