Whoa! What happened? Today almost slipped by and I didn't even realize you're 8 months old today! I feel horrible, but I have to admit, it's the excitement of Christmas that has me distracted. It was 7:00 p.m. and I was rocking you to sleep giving you a bottle when it occurred to me that today was December 19th - your 8th month birthday. I love rocking you to sleep when your tiny little fingers reach up to rub my face or pull my hair or scratch my neck. Anything your fingers do makes me smile. They are so little and so big at the same time. Your so very cuddly and snuggly in my arms; it's so hard to resist just smothering you with kisses over your entire body. But I usually resist so as not to wake you up and just resort to staring at your eye lashes, pressing my cheek against your warm forehead and breathing close to your face, hoping it makes you feel as comforted as it does me.
One reason, Khloe, that your monthly birthday often creeps up on me unexpected is that because sometimes I mix up the date of your birthday.
Can you believe that? Horrible, right? Well, for sooo long I created a "new" due date for you to arrive. I did not, and could not, live with the April 25th date my doctor assigned to me.
Who wants the 9th month of pregnancy to actually last 9 months??? Why would I tell people you were due April 25th when I could say that you were coming on April 15th? And so that is exactly what I told people - that you were due April 15th. And then there was your friend, Sadie Rae, who was due to arrive on April 22. I couldn't bear to think of Sadie having a scheduled arrival before you; that just wouldn't be fair (in the warped sense of a 9 month pregnant lady). In July, when you were 2 months old, I remember having a conversation with a neighbor and her asking when your birthday was - and I hesitated, stalled and stuttered! How embarrasing.
I'm your mom. How could I forget? Well I guess I get it mixed up because I told people you were due on April 15th, Sadie came along on April 22nd, your real due date was April 25th, yet you were born on April 19th. Dont' worry, I won't mess it up forever.
This weekend we started you on real solid foods, as in yogurt melts. The package says "for crawlers", and although you're not yet crawling, you should be, so we went ahead anyways. Since you only have two tiny teeth I broke the yogurt melt into tiny pieces and fed it to you. You gave us the most pained look, like
'Someone help me here. Get this thing off my tongue'. But after a few pieces every day for the last few days you eagerly eat them and are learning how to get the pieces into your mouth yourself. Of course your sister is right there to help you (and ask for her own yogurt melts too). We'll keep making the pieces bigger and bigger until you don't make horrible faces at us. Aunt Amy is coming home for Christmas in five days and I was hoping you might be ready for your special Cheerios debut with her, but she might have to make a special trip back to Michigan when you're ready for them. (Amy, take note!!) You are a good eater - you are eating 5 - 6 jars of baby food a day! A DAY! I don't think we can afford to keep feeding you Khloe, you are eating us out of house and home.
Finally, Khloe, you are sleeping through the night. When people ask when you started sleeping through the night my answer will be "7 months old". Two hundred and ten days of getting up once, twice, six times a night is a looooooong time. I've been tired for a long, long time Khloe. All of those times were not because you needed a bottle, but because your pacifier would fall out. Before 7 months old it was difficult for you to get your pacifier in your mouth by yourself; you could take it
out no problem. That, and the fact that up until 7 months old, you were still swaddled at night! Sometimes we would try and not swaddle you at night, but you just couldn't adapt. The tighter, the thicker the swaddle, the better. Once you hit 7 months and were able to navigate your pacifier by yourself, we started the transition of moving you out of your swaddle; you were starting to learn how to bust out of it anyways. It's fun to watch you in the video monitor because sometimes you enjoy your freedom a little
too much during naps; you roll and play all over the place but eventually put yourself to sleep. Other times you forget that you're
not swaddled and lay exactly in the position we put you in and don't move a muscle.
You still do your silly smile face for us. It is a full-gum-open-mouth-closed-eyes smile. It has
got to be caught on camera. I try, but you're too easily distracted by my camera. Ms Melissa caught it on camera, but a still shot of it is just not that attractive. We've decided that we need to catch it on video, but you're a hard one to nail down. You give the look freely first thing in the morning, you always do it when you see Princess or Tikky, you sometimes do it in your booster seat during meals and other times it's hit or miss. Either way, it makes us all laugh, so maybe that's why you do it!
We just love, love, love you to pieces! Thank you for all your open-mouth, slobbery kisses that now you use your two sharp little teeth on our cheeks to bite us with! We love those kisses the best!
