The Ashlan show: 8 months old and a little energizer bunny!

Ashlan turned 8 months on the 3rd! It seems ever since we’ve been having these playdates lately that Ashlan has been doing all sorts of new things. She can now pull up on the couch! She has been pulling up on us when we’re on the ground for a few weeks now. She originally started pulling up on couch because she wanted to get to Caesar when he’s there but now she does it whenever she wants. When I was skyping with my parents a few days ago she did it at least two times. She also can clap her hands! I’ve been doing this with her for months and it must have finally sunk in. She claps her hands and then giggles to herself, haha!

We’re trying to teach her “no” now because she’s getting into everything that she’s not supposed to. She seems to be getting it for the most part. However, when we’re in the living room, her favorite thing is to disappear behind the couch, heading into the kitchen for the dogs bowls. As soon as she hears me coming up behind her she starts crawling faster and giggles all the way as I’m saying “no” to her. I just scoop her up and take her back to the living room and try to distract her with a toy…but she’s getting lots of practice with the word, “no”. I just hope it doesn’t go in one ear and out the other, which I’m sure it will! And now that she’s crawling everywhere, it’s hard to skype because she won’t stay in the same place for long. I have to keep running after her! I never sit still for long anymore, that’s for sure.

She also must have gotten taller. We’re not sure how much as we go next month for her 9 month appointment but we had to adjust the car seat up another notch, which is the last one. We happened to buy a bigger one that was supposed to last to 30-35 lbs and 32 inches long. Seeing as she was 27.5 inches at her 6 month appointment, and we had to adjust the car seat now, I’m sure she’s getting close to that. I definitely thought we had more time because we bought a car seat with the maximum dimensions available before a convertible car seat. It looks like we’ll be looking into another car seat sooner rather than later.

This past week has been SUPER busy! Ashlan and I have been hanging out with our new friends that we met a few weeks ago and having a great time! We’ve been swimming a lot this week and we even went a few times to a place called O2B Kids, which is “the new learning playground” for kids. They have different kinds of classes there, like dance, gymnastics, science, math, visual arts, language, arts, etc. Of course, Ashlan is a little young for some of the classes but we are definitely interested in enrolling her in it in the future. Luckily, until they can walk, children are free so every time we meet our friends there we don’t have to pay a thing but we can play in nearly every room unless there is a class in session. So, though it would be exciting for her to start walking, it is nice to have free admission!

Naps are now pretty good for the most part, and so are nights. I can’t believe what a difference a few weeks of doing the sleep training has made! She goes down wide awake without a peep from her and falls asleep herself in a matter of minutes. Being out has sometimes presented a challenge for her naps. She can go down perfectly in her crib and she doesn’t even make a fuss if we’re in the car or if she’s in her stroller moving. But when we’re stationary and out (like when she’s sitting in her stroller not moving), we haven’t had much luck there. I honestly can’t complain though since she is such a great sleeper now!

She had her first diced apples today, and as usual, she loved them (and fed herself them). Even though she is eating 3rd foods, she doesn’t really care for them and she’d much rather feed herself. I’m re-doing our dinner menus every week so we have something she can eat everyday now that she is anti-puree food. That’s actually fine with us, since we don’t have to buy much baby food anymore because it’s so expensive! I’m just amazed she has come so far so fast…it seems like just a few weeks ago she was just eating Puffs and 2nd pureed foods. It is going by too fast! I’m seriously having a hard time keeping up with this blog and all the downloading of the photos/videos because it seems she is learning so much right now and she is always changing so I try to get it up quickly!

Mid crawl.