8 Months!

I have an eight month old.

I have an eight month old.

I have an eight month old.

I have to keep repeating that lest I forget. She is finally crawling and pretty much thinks she's a big girl. She hates being held and will strong arm you to get down. She has a little trouble going from sitting to crawling because that giant thigh of hers gets in the way but she manages to basically throw herself over it and go. The crawling is hilarious. It's like a half army crawl, half pushing off with her right foot. 

She's also a clapping fool. She adores clapping and it's the cutest thing in the world. 

She's also saying dada! It was pretty impressive - within three days she started the last three things. Just bam, bam, bam! Like she knew I was getting anxious for her to start any one of those. 

Here's the chart of milestones from Baby Center:

Child's Age

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do

8 months

Says "mama" or "dada" to parents (isn't specific) Passes objects from hand to hand

Stands while holding onto something Crawls Points at objects Searches for hidden objects

Pulls self to standing, cruises Picks things up with thumb-finger pincer grasp Indicates wants with gestures

June can say dada to us and definitely passes objects from hand to hand.

She can stand, crawl, point and search for things she drops.

She can't pull herself up yet or cruise, her pincer grasp is incredible and I'm pretty sure that's because of her self feeding, and I have seen her gesture toward a toy before. 

So, I'd say she's pretty on point. I'm pretty sure she's like only a few weeks away from walking. She's freakishly independent and wants to be big girl so badly. I'm so lucky to have such a good baby. She keeps herself entertained very well and is very easy going (until she's not - when she wants something, usually). 

Her faces are incredible. I guarantee she got that from me.

The one thing we could definitely work on is her sleeping. She had gotten on a great schedule of napping 9-11:30am and then 1:30-3:30 or 4. But this week she's decided no, not napping pretty much ever. She's also still waking up between once to three times a night. Guys, I'm starting to die a little from all of this lack of sleep. HELP ME!

Seriously, give me advice. What do you do for your babes? Comment here and let me know!  

How do I get this crazy lady to sleep?!

Four Months Old, Teeth and Sleep

My sweetheart is four months old, well four months and one week - to be exact. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I think back to a year ago when I was barely pregnant and she was a small poppy seed baby in my belly; I would come home from school, flop into bed and nap with Henry curled against me as my heater and protector. What an incredible journey we've been on. 

I never thought in a million years that I would say this but I miss being pregnant. I miss the secret we kept for 15 weeks, the joy of creating life and the miracle of a strong baby kicking inside. I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of having another baby but not any time soon! We want to wait until June is almost 3 to start trying and attempt to plan a winter baby - close to my birthday. How close are YOUR kids? What do you like about it? What don't you like? (If you don't have kids, what about you and your siblings?)

Junie is a big, healthy girl. Her fourth month check up was on Monday and Dr. Chu was impressed with her "talking!" She's such a jabber jaws. She weighs 16 lbs 2oz, in the 92nd percentile and is 26.5in long, off the charts! Her head is keeping steady growth at 16.5in, the 75th percentile. Her shots went well and my wonderful Aunt Jen was there to keep me sane. A little trick she did was to gently blow in June's face while the nurse gave her the shots. The first one she barely flinched, the second one she looked at me like, "Why did you do that?" and the third she wailed. But the crying only lasted 45 seconds, if that! I was so proud of my sweet girl. The only thing we have to "work on" is her rolling over. She's rolled about three times from belly to back but hasn't really mastered it! I've been told not to worry because she's holding her head steady and nearly sitting alone so we'll catch up on the rolling soon.

She is getting two teeth on the bottom and I feel so sad for her! I cannot imagine how much it hurts. We've been doing what we can to keep her comfortable but my normally happy, calm, easy baby has been having some major crying spells - usually in the morning. So hard for mommy!

We have started food and she is doing wonderfully! We skipped the rice cereal and went to barley and mixed grains per Dr.'s instructions. She tasted it and spit it out the first time but after a few bites she mastered swallowing it and seemed to really like it. We will stay with cereal for a week and then I'll start making her yellow veggies. I cannot wait to see her try carrots. So many fun things happening. 

After her shots on Monday we decided to skip the "dream feed" (waking her up around 11pm to feed her) so she could sleep more. A magical thing happened - she only woke up once! And she has followed that pattern all week. Now she will eat around 6pm, go to bed between 730-8pm, wake up at 1-2am and then sleep until 7am. It has been a strange shake up around here! Even though I've been sleeping more, my body isn't adjusting to it very well. I seem to be more tired even with a 5 hour stretch of sleep. 

Something I haven't really talked about here is our living situation. We are still living with my parents and sharing one room. It's been wonderful having all of the help around and of course, not paying astronomical rent. June would have been in our room until now anyway, regardless of where we lived so that has not been a problem. As she gets older though, I've been getting sad that she doesn't have her own room. Silly, maybe but it's been weighing on my mind. This week my mom proposed that Thomas and I switch rooms and we can transform her craft room into June's room. It brought tears to my eyes. My sweetheart will have her own room! I am so excited to start decorating and putting things together for her. 

What colors do you like for a baby girl room? We have a pink dresser and this beautiful quilt our dear friend Stacy made for her that is a plum scheme. We want to tie them both in, what do you think?

How sweet is this quilt?

Junie Lately

Exciting news: we found someone to marry us! Our dear, dear, dear doula, Becky Leonard, offered her husband. He's performed five ceremonies, he does non-religious stuff, he's wickedly funny and smart and he'll look great in pictures too! I am so utterly excited to have Norm there in a such a great way on our big day. We keep joking that the Leonard's must be intimately involved in every Kellogg/Losey life altering event! Babies, weddings, who knows what else! Such a relief!

In other news, my baby darling June Elizabeth is almost 12 weeks old. How on earth did that happen? I swear the last 3 months have flown by. October feels like it didn't even happen. June is amazing. I have to tell you, after being a nanny for so many years and encountering all types of children, I am that much more grateful to have such a happy baby. She is so good. She's technically sleeping through the night. At this age 5 hours straight is considered sleeping through and she'll go anywhere from 5-7 hours.

Just for fun, here's our day-to-day routine (if I'm not working):

745am: Wake up! Junie will fuss a little until I wake up and get her into our bed and cuddle. I change her diaper, we talk and sing and she laughs. She's a super happy morning baby. 

845-9am: Nap! She usually falls back asleep after our play time in the morning. It's usually a little cat nap lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or so.

9:30am: Eat! The little chunker is drinking 5oz bottles, usually downing between 30-35oz a day. I'm almost worried that she's eating TOO much!

10-1230pm: Play time! She's usually really awake and happy during the late morning. She loves to swing in her swing, be outside with the big kids my mom watches or lay on her play mat. This is also a great time for me to run errands and get out of the house with her.

1pm: Eat! Another 5oz!

1:30pm: Nap! Usually she'll take a longer nap in the early afternoon. Sometimes she'll sleep up to 3 hours!

3pm: More play. I like to hold her and we'll play with her new favorite toy - a giraffe. When we met Santa* on Saturday he gave her a Baby Einsteins play set that includes this super cute giraffe rattle that she absolutely loves. (Sometimes she'll take another cat nap in here somewhere too.)

5pm: Eat! Again, 5oz.

530-6pm: Daddy usually comes home and holds her for a while and they talk and play. We like to give her a bath around this time too. Not every day though, she has very dry skin and it seems to aggravate it if we bathe her too often.

7pm: No matter what time she ate last - she has to eat around 7pm or else she sounds like she's dying of starvation. And I wonder how she weighs 13 pounds...

7-8pm: Sleepy bed time. We used to let her fall asleep downstairs in her swing with us but we've started putting her directly in her cradle when she starts to get tired so that way she knows her bed is for sleep. It's been working wonderfully and she's asleep within minutes.

1030-11pm: We wake her up to feed her another 5oz. She would probably sleep until 2am if we didn't wake her up but I worked to cut out that 2am feeding so now we do a dream feed. Dream feeding is basically feeding them when they're still asleep. We pick her up, change her diaper, feed her and put her right back in bed. She rarely even wakes up. And if she does, we swaddle her and she's back to sleep by the time we get back in bed. I know not every "expert" recommends a dream feed but it works wonderfully for us. 

430-530am: Wake up and eat another 5oz. I've been trying to cut out/push back this feeding because I know she could probably sleep longer. So I've been trying to do it the same way I cut out the 2am feeding. She'll wake up a little bit, kind of start to fuss and I give her her binky and make sure she's covered. If she isn't absolutely starving she'll go right back to sleep, if she is truly hungry, I'll feed her. I've gotten her to sleep until 530 and one morning even 615. So I know it can be done.

630-7am: Daddy usually get her out of bed and talks with her and changes her before he goes to work. It's their special time, just like June and I have our special morning routine. If she ate at 430, she'll usually eat again around this time. 

745am: START AGAIN!

My giggly elf. She does give Mommy and Daddy silent nights, if you exclude her weird grunting, snoring and heavy breathing.

*Santa is my grandpa - a real beard Santa! He works throughout Orange County and Riverside County and everyone loves him! It's so great. I LOVE the pictures we got of June meeting her Great Papa as Santa for the first time, even if she does look like a Jabba the Hut baby.

So there's our lives in a nutshell for the moment. The wedding is two weeks from today and I'm trying not to stress. I'm sure it will be beautiful and wonderful!