8 months!

Yeah, okay so Daphne is almost 9 months. Quick, let me share a few pics from her 8 month photo shoot!

What a month it was. Between our trip to Oregon and the eighth month mark Daphne went from pre-crawling maneuvers to mastering mobility on all fours to pulling to standing and beginning to cruise a bit.

She still seems more interested in some pretty intense squats - pulling to standing then lowering to sitting and repeating that over and over again - so I'm not too worried she'll be a crazy early walker. Because while I enjoy her increased mobility and independence I'm not sure I'm ready for a walker just yet. Here are a few more images from the guitar photo shoot:

  

Otherwise in September we continued to get used to big brother's new schedule - almost every day being a little different and affecting the afternoon nap in different ways - and survived two weeks of solo parenting together.

The first week was rough. Daphne was for perhaps the first time in her 8 months the more difficult child and on top of a cranky week we attempted a little separation on the Friday of that week with little success.

She was, not surprisingly, upset that I was not there and cried quite a bit during the first hour that I was gone. While it may sound harsh, that part didn't bother me. I mean, duh. The deal-breaker was that the sitter called me to tell me how upset she was and how much she missed me but didn't think I needed to come home necessarily. Note to babysitters - only call if you want the parents to come home or it's an emergency. Needless to say that was a bit of a buzzkill but I stayed out for a couple more hours. I thought we might try again but between the sitter's limited availability and the fact that Neal now works from home much of the week when not traveling, I think we'll just wait until Daphne begins daycare next year.

 

We dusted off a couple more of big brother's old toys and continued to enjoy Gymboree, going to our class on Sundays and open gym once or twice during the week.

 

I'm surprised during open gym times how old the other kids are - Daphne is almost always easily the youngest. I remember when we returned to Oakland when Elias was about 13 months considering keeping up with Gymboree and trying out a class at the branch Daphne and I go to now but ultimately deciding free and abundant playgrounds would work just as well since the weather is so nice so much of the year. It just seems really odd to me - I can't imagine doing Gymboree once Daphne can navigate the 2-5 play structures. But it's perfect for this mobile but not yet walking stage.

She also broke her first tooth! I haven't tried to get a good picture of it yet and tooth #2 is just breaking through so maybe in time for the 9 month update later this week (or in three weeks...you know how it is). We still do a lot of cereal and purees but she's self-feeding pretty well most meals on puffs, fruit, cheese, bread, meatballs and sausage (although some of this has been during the past two to three weeks so my updates may be blending a bit with this late post). Greek yogurt mixed with fruit puree for breakfast has been a hit and she seems to be tolerating dairy just fine. So maybe all those weeks of avoiding dairy were unnecessary...I guess we'll never know.

Speaking of, I'm still breastfeeding which is pretty amazing to me, having officially nursed Daphne now for twice as long as I nursed Elias. That makes me a little sad for him but I'm glad I've been able to nurse Daphne as long as I have. I'm hoping to make it to the one-year mark and perhaps morning/evening sessions a little beyond that (not looking to use my pump pretty much ever again - woo hoo!) but I'm planning on closing the mama kitchen for good by about 14/15 months. We'll see how the next three months go.

While we're on the topic of basics - eat, sleep, poop - Daphne is a pretty good sleeper so far, knock on wood. There was a week right around the five-month mark when she didn't wake during the night at all to nurse. I never let myself get used to that because it seemed really early to totally night wean on her own. And sure enough, after a week she started waking again once or twice a night to eat. But right around the 7-month mark she again dropped the night feeding and hasn't added it back in since. I have completely gotten used to sleeping through the night myself and I really hope, barring the occasional illness, travel, what have you, that I never have to go through that again. Of course now that I've bragged about it online she'll probably start waking again at night but I feel pretty confident, either way, that it won't be to eat.

And, like her brother, she's better at nighttime sleep than naps and honestly, that's just fine with me. She typically sleeps a little over two hours total each day, broken down into two naps of an hour or so. Not a lot of time to get stuff done but I figure she's getting about 14 hours of sleep each day/night so I can't complain. Getting work done will happen when she's in daycare three days a week in just three short months. Sheesh, where does the time go??