LOGAN AT 8 MONTHS

You guys, I'm not gonna be diplomatic about it, I am pretty much bonkers in love with this little baby girl.

She is the size of my chest these days so she fits perfectly against me as I carry her around and she is strong enough to be placed on the ground without padding around her. I am appreciating her in brand new ways all the time, and I find myself squeezing and kissing her in surprised delight at how much love I feel for her. These days, it feels like the baby fog is passing which makes me both sad and glad. It means she is coming into to her own even more, becoming more independent and sleeping more (which means I'm sleeping more!) but it also means we're leaving her babyhood behind for good. She wants to evolve into a toddler, so much, probably even more so because she has an older sibling around. 

Do you see that little pink spot on her nose? That's a spot that is healing from falling flat on her face last weekend. It was mostly my fault. I put her on a couch, got distracted for longer than a few seconds, and the next thing I know she was plummeting to the floor (along with my heart!) She had tried to crawl forward and on a couch there is nowhere to go but down, so down she went, and she had a scraped nose for almost a week afterwards. I can already see it, she's going to want to do everything Sloane does, too early for my liking!

I noted during Sloane's 8 month reflections that Sloane had this way of staring deeply into the faces of people with a serious expression in order to take them in and I can see that playing out now in how she learns. She can learn something by watching or observing and then she will take it on. Logan seems to have a slightly different approach - she is more hands on and seems to want to learn by interacting. It will be interesting to see how this looks as she gets older.

She is sturdy on her hands and knees and up until a few weeks ago she got around by crawling backwards, not forward. Then she figured out how to sit up from a laying down position, and then she figured out this wonky forward crawling motion that she does sometimes - one leg is crawling and the other one is walking, and now she can crawl with both knees like a little puppy. But she seems to prefer using her legs to be upright!

I put these pants on her because Sloane wore these around this age, but Logan's butt and thighs must be a lot bigger because I had to really squeeze her into these. 

She loves pulling herself up and standing up. Even though it doesn't last too long, that seems to be her goal in moving around, to somehow get upright like this.  Apparently, she stood up ON HER OWN at daycare this past week, without pulling up on anything, but I haven't seen her do that yet.

Look at her, so proud of herself ! 

She claps, waves, flaps her arms, flaps item in hand that she has successfully retrieved, reaches out for me, greets all of her with a huge grin, laughs a lot and much more interactive with Sloane. 

The other day I watched as she explored a clean toothbrush I had given her to play with in the bath. It was fascinating to see how she took it in  - she shook it around in the air, banged it against the tub, put it under the water, and then let it go to see what it would do in the water, and felt the bristles over and over again. When she would try to put it in her mouth, I said no and she immediately stopped, which tells me she understands the word 'no'. 

Later, when I tried to take it away, she was not happy and started vocalizing her complaint and I had to explain that the toothbrush lived in the bathroom. "Bye bye toothbrush!" I exclaimed as I whisked her out. I think babies at this age hugely benefit from being talked to; I did that a lot with Sloane and I've been doing that with Logan too. More so these days because we've noticed that once in a while when someone takes something out of her hands (unfortunately, it's usually Sloane that pulls something away, with good intention of course - "Logan, this is how you play with it...") she will get upset, arch her back and cry. It looks like early signs of a tantrum ! But I have found that gently explaining before taking it away and then quickly moving on to the next thing is effective.

I can't wait for the upcoming warmer months of no coats, hats or socks...just you wait Logan, it's glorious.

Sloane took this last photo! She caught this moment right as Logan snapped off a piece of Walter the plant.