Emma: 8 months

How oh how can my baby already be 8 months old!? She is such a sweet little girl and is generally laid back. I think she has her dad's personality! She is a classic 2nd child and can usually sit and happily entertain herself on the floor.

Emma loves being "chased" by Isla. Any time I carry her down the stairs with Isla following along behind, Emma clings tightly to me and begins squealing with glee and looking over her shoulder to see her sister. I swear she's beginning to understand me because often I ask her "Where's Isla?" and she starts scanning the room until she finds Isla. The two are almost inseparable and Emma goes down much easier at night when Isla is in the room. Often I wake to them giggling at each other in their cribs.

I introduced Emma to the swings at the park this month and she LOVES them. She could sit there and swing forever, just like her big sis.

Graham created a game he calls "Attack of the Baby" that is another form of entertainment in our house. You can see why here:

She is soooo easily distracted now. She no longer nurse in public very well or actually anywhere really that is noisy. She nurses about 4-5 times/day on average now and eats 3 meals of solids. She is a great water drinker.

New foods this month include Cheerios, cauliflower, broccoli, acorn squash, celery, prunes, beets, pears, carrots, rice, red pepper, green beans, corn and egg yolk. It took her a month but she can now pick up and eat Cheerios and other small pieces of food all by herself.

She has become very ticklish and it's pretty hard to resist doing it when she responds like this:

Emma has figured out how to click her tongue and she loves it when you do it back to her.
She loves to say "na-na-na-na" so I've started singing "Na-naaaa-naa-naa-naa-na! Gettin' jiggy with it. Na na na na na na!" to her in response and she just laughs and laughs.

Now that Emma is rolling, we officially have ourselves a little tummy sleeper. I always lay her down on her back but she only stays that way for ~20 seconds before she flips to her belly. She continues to be a cat napper during the day, sleeping EXACTLY 35-40 minutes, 2 or 3 times a day. It's frustrating but I know this too shall pass.

She goes to bed at 7 PM and was consistently waking only once/night at 4 AM to eat. But then she decided to add back an appetizer feed at 2 AM so we did some more cry it out with the sole goal of getting rid of the 2 AM business. Instead, she exceeded my expectations and sleep all the way until 6 or 6:30 AM on a few occasions this past week! I'm hopeful we are on track for her to consistently begin sleeping through the night. She's a joy!