Janie is 8 months!

What a month full of changes for our Lil' Gem this past month has been! There have been some challenging days, but for the most part, we are having SO much fun with our sweet baby girl! A few days shy of eight months old, she FINALLY rolled over. Just as we predicted, once she was willing to do it, she continued consistently rolling over, in both directions. She still moves slowly and isn't getting across the room on her own quite yet but we know that our days without the baby gates up are limited. Janie is also far more content spending time on her tummy than she has ever been. Her arms are getting much stronger and she hold herself up really well and rocks back and forth, but has yet to really get up on her knees and attempt to crawl.

She is also making progress standing up with support and can really get her bounce on while playing in the exersaucer. Janie typically spends time in the exersaucer when Mommy is making meals and she has learned that she can easily get my attention with some of her crazy bouncing and silly sounds. When I walk over to her, she shares the best playful grin!

When she is fed and well-rested, Janie has a very calm and content personality. She really loves to play! In the past it was a challenge for her to enjoy independent play, but now really seems happy to sit with a few toys in front of her. She seems to study her toys as well as whoever is playing with her with an adorable intensity. Her beautiful blue eyes twinkle and she has adorable head tilts and facial expressions we can't get enough of. She still loves to play peek-a-boo and it is something that is sure to get a laugh out of her. At the changing table she gets a hold of whatever I am putting on/taking off her, hides her face with it, then peeking over with a playful smile until I we say "Peeky" and then she is quick to cover he face again. This never gets old!

Patty-cake continues to be another one of Janie's favorite games. When cued with "clappy-clappy" or "Patty-cake" she sweetly taps her hands together several time and bounces a little. At playgroup she seems to recognize her favorite songs and squeals when we start signing them. Just last week we got out some of Clara's favorite first books and have noticed that she really enjoys the ones with animal sounds. Clara loves to make the sounds for her and is working on memorizing the books, especially Moo, Baa, La La La, so that she can "read" them to her baby sister all by herself.

Janie has tried lots of fun new foods in the past month. She enjoys eating and never refuses food unless it is cereal made with formula. Our gal still refuses any formula and has only taken a few bottles in the past month. Again, Grandma & Grandpa Michael came over so Mommy & Daddy could attend a Cozen event at Canlis and Janie even refused to take a pumped bottle the whole time we were gone, but then has no problem taking one the next morning for Mommy... Silly kiddo!

One skill that has really developed in her self-feeding of puffs and small treats. Occasionally she will drop one, but her accuracy of getting them from whatever surface she picks them up from her mouth is up to like 85%. She also loves Mum Mum crackers and eating fruit out of her baby feeder. In fact, it was her interest in the puffs that seemed to be her motivation for her first roll.

There is still no sign of teeth, but she has increased her chewing lately, making us believe that they are not too far off. Clara got her first 2 teeth at 8 1/2 months, but we are learning that Janie has a completely different pace. Since she is still nursing almost every three hours, I guess the longer she goes without teeth, the better for Mommy!


We have started to teach Janie signs, starting with "more", "milk", "food" and "please". Just recently she has been making the sign for milk when she starts to fuss before nursing. When we realized that she was doing this, it was such a proud moment! Along with the signing and clapping, Janie is all about waving. If we wave at her, it is as if we can watch the wheels slowly turning and about 10 seconds later, she finally gets her right hand waving up and down. Of course, we get excited and provide praise which seems to just get her little hand waving harder.

Having always been a "talker" Janie's baby babble is starting to change into mimicking sounds she hears and making the sound over and over. She has been saying "Mama" for a while, she now says it when she wakes up like she is calling out for me/us to come get her. She doesn't make the "Dada" sound very often, but does loudly call out "Aaah-wa" , a sound that I like to think is her calling big sister, Clara.

This month we decided that functioning on only 4 hours of sleep every night was not working for Mommy & Daddy, especially combined with all the time it was taking us to get her to go to sleep and decided to work on sleep training. Oh, my... it was hard! Poor Janie cried it out and while we did the same thing with Clara around this age, for some reason, it felt even harder for Mommy this time around. (Maybe that is just time working its magic) After several rough days, especially evenings, our Jane Bug finally is able to get herself to sleep in her crib. All the crying must have worn her our because for the first week or so, she was sleeping 10 hour stretches. Now, she does not go quite that long and is up sometime in the 4:00 - 5:00 hour, we are not spending the hours getting her to go to sleep. It won't be long now before we actually have a semi-reliable schedule. Having a little more sleep sure leads to a happier household!