Eight Months

Stella is 8 months old today and life has drastically changed in the last few days here in the Frisby home. My little baby who would lay there and play with her toys, rolling here and there, staying fairly contained is no more. She has now figured out how to scoot and it's game on! All of a sudden, she is here, there, and everywhere. And fast. She hasn't figured out how to crawl quite yet. I expect she'll do that tomorrow since she seems to always hit a major milestone the day after I blog. For now, she just pulls herself with her arms while pushing a little with her feet to help the process. When she's on the kitchen floor, which has no carpet, she moves pretty fast since she slides so easily. But, she's learning to get around pretty well on the carpet, too. With her newfound mobility, the possibilities for discovery are endless. She's particularly interested in what's under the couch. There isn't much really. The DDR mats for the Wii and a lot of dust. But, to her, it's a whole new world. Yesterday she scooted over to the couch, pulled a dust ball out from under it, and popped it in her mouth before I could stop her. And her favorite thing to do is pull out the cords on the DDR mats and eat them. I figure it's okay since they're not plugged in to anything. I did Swiffer under the couches yesterday after the dust ball incident. All of a sudden I find myself vacuuming all the time and cleaning in places that I wasn't worried about before - like under the couch. And I told Mr. Frisby that I want a steam mop for my birthday. The times, they are a-changin'. Sing it Bob Dylan.

Scout, bless her heart, is beside herself now that the baby can get around and into things. In fact, she's a pretty decent tattletale. If she thinks that Stella is getting into something she shouldn't, she usually lets me know. And she's very aware of what's hers and what's Stella's and she does not like Stella getting into her stuff. She's okay if Stella gets one of her toys because she thinks maybe she'll play with her. But, the other day we were at my parents' and we had a bag for Scout with some of her things in it. Stella was cruising around checking things out and decided to investigate Scout's bag. Scout did not like that at all. First, she tried to take the bag away from Stella. But, that didn't really work because she couldn't get a good hold on it with her teeth. So, she tried to swat Stella's hand away with her paw. But, that didn't work either. Finally, she went over and started nipping at Stella's ponytail and just generally freaking out until I went over and took the bag away from Stella. It was hilarious. Scout and Stella remain good friends and it will be fun to see how Scout reacts to Stella crawling and standing and getting into more trouble.

Besides her increased mobility, Stella has also branched out in her eating this month. In fact, she had her first meal at a restaurant. We went to Marie Callendar's on Saturday and when I looked at the menu, I saw that kids eat free on Saturday. So, I looked at the kids' menu, decided she could eat some pasta and garlic bread as long as we cut it up really small for her, and ordered her first meal. And she LOVED it. She could have sat there eating for hours, but I got bored with it. Her meal even came with a free slice of pie. I got her Apple because she loves apples and I gave her a couple bites. She would've eaten more, but I decided that wouldn't be a good idea. She does love to eat and is learning to feed herself a little bit too. I give her some freeze-dried yogurt drops and cereal puffs that she can pick up and eat herself. It took some practice, but her pincer grasp is improving and she's getting really good at getting things in her mouth. And she loves being able to do it herself. Scout also loves it when she feeds herself because she misses or drops things a fair amount, too.

In my last post, I mentioned that Stella was spitting up a lot less. This was, apparently, a lie. She must have just been having a good couple of weeks. She is now back to her usual ways, spewing spit up wherever she goes. And, it's even more fun now with all of the different foods she's eating. Here's some photographic evidence. She spit up over my shoulder as I stood up with her from this chair. And this is only what made it past my shoulder and back. I think twice about buying red, orange, or purple food and I think twice about buying her white clothes.

She has her bottom two teeth now and I think she may be working on another one. We'll see if anything pops up soon. Her favorite toy right now is probably her Fisher Price Xylophone. She LOVES that thing. She's still figuring out how to bang on it and make noise, but it keeps her busy for awhile. Like, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. That's awhile for baby, right? I feel like it is since her other toys keep her occupied for, like, 15 or 20 seconds.

She's a very busy little girl and we love watching her discover the world around her. She continues to be happy in general and very easy going. She's even showing signs of getting over her anyone-except-mom-anxiety. If you feed her, she'll probably let you hold her.

I was looking through Stella's baby book the other day as I was adding some more information and I was looking at some of her newborn pictures. Those first days with her seem so far away and so long ago and, yet, 8 months really isn't a very long time. It amazes me how much she has changed and how quickly those changes happened. I won't lie and say I enjoy every minute of it. I enjoy most minutes, but not all. I could do without all the minutes of changing diapers, cleaning up spit up, etc. But, I try to savor the far too few minutes of being able to just sit and watch her be her. And, with that, I hear her stirring and waking up from her nap. Time to see what she'll be getting into this afternoon. We love our little Stella!