I’ve truly done a terrible job of documenting life these past few months... I suppose, again, that I’m still getting over the fact that Ruthie is no longer a newborn. Alas, I will take what I can get these days...
At eight months old, Ruthie is...
- sleeping around 12 hours at night, occasionally waking once in the early morning (5ish) to eat. She takes two two-ish hour naps a day, but if her second nap is short she will generally take a third nap for about 45 minutes. If she eats poorly during the day, her nighttime sleep usually reflects that.
- eating 5-6 ounces of formula (we’re back on Similac now that I can get a good deal on the small cans, and I’m noticing a HUGE difference in how she’s eating) four times a day. She usually eats more first thing in the morning and at bedtime. I also still put cereal in her bottles in the morning and at night. Ruthie also loves to eat both baby food and finger food, and would probably do away with all baby food if I’d let her. She particularly loves her Cheerios, small pieces of banana, chicken, potatoes, and broccoli. We have postponed dairy for her because of spit-up, but we plan to introduce it this month and see how it goes.
- staying awake longer when we are out and about, although she still sacks out pretty quickly in the stroller. I’m remembering that this is the “difficult” phase of outings: annoyingly short naps in the morning, followed by annoyingly short and grumpy afternoon naps. We’re limiting our outings right now for Mommy’s sanity. (Michael reminded me that we will not always and forever have babies that require two naps...)
- spitting up less, although we still probably have two good “spits” a day.
- wearing a size 3 diaper, 6-9 month clothes, and is learning to tolerate socks now that the weather is cooling down.
- scooting backwards proficiently, and getting up on her knees to crawl... although she has yet to really make good forward progress. She will be crawling very soon!
- pulling up... sort of. She can pull up on shorter things (like our large busy box) and stand in a crooked-sort-of-way with a knee on the floor. She also likes to push herself up on our toy baskets in the den, but she has yet to attempt it on taller pieces of furniture like the coffee table.
- jabbering loudly and often. Phoebe loves to inform me when Ruthie has said “Mama”.
- loves to cuddle, unless she doesn’t. She really enjoys sitting in a lap when a book is involved! She enjoys books with real pictures best, although she will also sit still for touch-and-feel books. Mommy is trying to be intentional with some reading time for her littlest Roo!
- cracks up at Jake and Nora, but will laugh at anyone if they’re tickling or playing peek-a-boo.
- beginning to share her paci and her Mousie... so sweet how she wants to share her favorite things!
- happiest with a friend (she’s seldom alone!) and loves to play with bead mazes, chewy toys, squishy blocks, feely books, and anything tiny and illicit that absolutely isn’t a toy.
