Chompers

After much wishin' & hopin', one of Kate's top front teeth is finally coming in! She's been working on it for several days, and this morning I saw a sliver of white poking through her gums. Oh, these moments are bittersweet, aren't they? She's just not going to look so babyish with top teeth! Last night we gave her a teething biscuit to help massage her gums, and once I saw that a mess was inevitable, I just quit wiping and let her have at it. She really enjoyed it, and here's the evidence:

In other news, Kate's also been battling a cold for the last 5 days, but today she seems to be doing much better. She hates the nasal aspirator (a.k.a. snot sucker bulb), so I bought a battery operated aspirator that plays music, to see if that would work better. She likes the music & doesn't fight me quite as much, and I like that you can see the fruit of your labor in the little collection tube (only a mom would say that). Anyway, as I said she is doing better so hopefully we won't have to use it much more. I, on the other hand, am just getting started on a cold. I hope it passes soon. (And no, I won't be using the snot sucker on myself.)

Video Montage

I really wanted an excuse to play with Windows Movie Maker last night, so here goes. I've edited together several recent video clips that show a few fun things Kate's been up to lately. In the first clip, she is playing with her new soft blocks that she absolutely loves to knock down. Listen for her giddy squeals at the beginning and the end. In the second, she demonstrates her dexterity by passing a rattle from one hand to the other. In the third and forth, she shows off her skills at standing up--note the bouncing butt. The last clip is Kate jumping in her doorway jumper--watch for when she lifts both legs up to "coast."

8-Month Birthday

Today Kate is 8 months old! Where does the time go?? Here's a little bit of info about what our sweetie pie is up to these days:

• She's getting really good at drinking out of a sippy cup, but WAY prefers to slosh and slurp out of a big person cup. She gets so excited when we let her do it, but the water usually gushes out of her mouth & down her face.
• Recently graduated to 3 "solid" meals a day. None of the portions are very big by baby standards...but she does seem to eat more food at dinnertime. So far she appears to prefer veggies over fruits. Right now her fav veggies are sweet potatoes, carrots, and green peas, and her fav fruits are prunes by far (but you gotta go easy on those prunes). She also likes avocados, but I've discovered that they give her constipation...I've thought about pairing the prunes & avocados to balance each other out. :-) Definite dislikes are butternut squash and home-prepared bananas (but she'll eat the awful Gerber bananas. Weirdo.)
• Points and prods with her index finger
• Can stand holding onto the couch with our support
• Is getting much better at tummy time and is pushing up on knees every once in a while
• Has learned how to screech at the top of her lungs and is, much to our dismay, proficient at it. Although sometimes it is a sign of distress, often it is just a vocal experiment. We hope this phase passes soon...
• Lastly, she still enjoys being outside and going for walks and is more than willing to brave the winter chill to do so.