Clara Eight Months

My baby Clara or chicken nugget as we call her turned 8 months old this week. I always get comments on how she's so petite and though she is just under the 50th percentile in weight now, she's a strong little baby. She started crawling at 7.5 months and is constantly pulling herself up on anything she can find. I'm pretty sure she'll start walking before she turns one. The problem with crawling is that she now wants to destroy all of Amelie's toys that she lays out nicely. Amelie is always playing with her kitchen, baking birthday cakes with icing and rainbow sprinkles or making strawberry lemonade. When she sets all her plates down, Clara just goes for them (no matter how many toys she has for herself) and destroys it. This has turned into a constant battle between the two. Since one major meltdown one day from both of them, it's become much better, but still, it's a struggle for everyone. 

During the day I breastfeed Clara right when she wakes up, an hour before lunch, the late afternoon plus right before bed around 7ish. I plan to breastfeed until she turns one, but the sessions are getting shorter and shorter now as she's much more interested in playing. 

Clara loves food though I am starting to see a hint of picky-ness shining through. Her favorites are mango, strawberries, baked sweet potato fries, broccoli, fusilli pasta, and meatballs. She's starting to master picking up Cheerios and blueberries too. I started spoon feeding her a little bit more these days since a lot of her food ends up on the floor with baby-led weaning. She especially likes oatmeal with almond butter, turkey chili, or a good soup. After I spoon feed her, I always give her pieces of her own food to eat. 

I had a blissful 2 weeks+ of Clara sleeping through the night from 7pm-7am though in the past week or so she's been waking up once or twice a night. I'll shush her if it's early on then only give her one feed during the night. She's still in the bedside cot though I know she's pretty much outgrown it. We are going to start the transition (for both girls) out of our room to their own rooms after Easter. I'm excited, scared and nervous for this and not looking forward to the many middle of the night wakeups (probably due to Amelie more than Clara). I've loved having Amelie co-sleep with us so far, but it's time for her to move to her own bed! 

The weather has been sunny and warmer lately so we've been taking lots of trips to the playgrounds in our neighborhood. Clara loves to go on the swings and giggles so much when I push her. I can't wait for warmer weather so we can go to the beach, make popsicles and have picnics.