8 Month Update for Andromeda

Sorry this is so late, we've been busy around here!  This post was actually done 2 weeks after Andi’s 8 month milestone but for some reason it didn’t publish at the time, so here we are a month late...  Anyway, Andromeda continues to be a constant delight at 8 months!  She is still as happy and as chatty as ever.  Her big update this month is that now she is crawling!!!  She'd been on the verge of doing so for a while and one night we had her down on the floor with us for some play time and she just took off!  She's still not really into everything yet, she mainly crawls with intent to get to a toy or to pull herself up on some furniture (another new skill), but we've started baby proofing anyway just so it's not a last minute scramble when she does start to realize she now has access to cabinets and shelves.  So far we've tackled kitchen cabinets and outlets, but we still have a bunch of stuff to safe.

She crawls!!!

We had a very busy month between work, play, and travel.  We've been trying to get out of the house more, especially on the weekend, even if it's just a trip to the store.  But there have definitely been some quality destinations as well such as Andi's first trip to the public library and our weekly swim lessons (she's starting to love the water more!).

Smiles at swim lessons!

Books + toys + library = happy and engaged baby!

Showing Andi all of the geography books about places we'll go visit someday!

A number of people plus one new furry friend came to visit us at the house as well.  S's parents came to visit, we love when Uncle K stops by (and brings yummy homemade jerky that Andromeda will devour whole if we don't watch closely!), and we were watching a sweet kitty for friends of ours that were on travel.

Showing grandma how we move and play!

Andromeda (and Penny) love Uncle K's jerky!

A sweet furry friend came to visit for a week

 The biggest event this month, though, was our trip to Florida to visit my parents, brother D, and future sister-in-law E.  My sister-in-law J also came down with Andi's cousin G and it was so fun to watch the two baby cousins together!  They are only 4 months apart in age, but Andromeda was only 2 weeks old when they first met last December, so I think the connection was a bit lost on her at the time.  This visit they could both interact and sort of play with each other.  We also went on a couple of trips to the pool and splash pad.  The photo ops were numerous and adorable.

Florida bound!

Andi watching the plane land in Ft. Lauderdale

Big family dinner the first night we arrived

4 Generations!

Twinning with some ridiculously adorable shoulder ruffles

A VERY happy grandma!

 

A great family photo while twinning again in some adorable lobster rompers

Water babies!

Andromeda was a champ on the airplane for the flight to Florida but struggled a little bit on the way home due a combination of a stuffy nose, teething, and a couple nights of rough sleep.  But we made it back home and jumped right back into the swing of things.  Andi has made the executive decision to cut herself down to only 2 naps/day, which was rough when we were coming off of this somewhat sleep deprived trip.  But once we got home to familiar surroundings and a normal schedule, things have gotten better.  During the day, her afternoon nap has grown from a 30 minute crappy nap to be longer than an hour, so that's been pretty magical!  I leave you with a few random cute pictures from month 8:

Weekend morning brunch with mommy and daddy

Andromeda loved to put things into the farm silo and then pull them back out again!

Mmmmm, broccoli!

Helping mommy with laundry

Andi is fascinated with her moon nightlight

 

Andi's 7 Month Update!

I said it last month and I'll say it again this month, this is such a fun age!  Andromeda is still the queen of crappy  naps, but when she is awake she is the happiest little kiddo, constantly babbling, laughing, moving, and wanting to try new things.  We had a lot of big stuff happen this month!  We'll start off with motor skills - Andi is now semi-mobile.  She can scoot on her booty.  We'll set her on the floor and turn around for 2 minutes and turn back to find her 4 feet from where she started, likely trying to get one of the dog toys.  At daycare they said that she scooted all the way over to the cabinets when they weren't looking and she was opening drawers!  She is on the verge of crawling, so things are about to get a lot more real and we definitely need to crack down on our baby proofing real soon.  She will get on her hands and knees and rock, but she hasn't figured out what to do once she gets there.  She usually just falls to her belly and get frustrated right now.  But she's SO CLOSE!  We've also started teaching her some ways to communicate with us - arms in the air means "up" and she will occasionally wave "goodbye".

Happy kiddo with all the toys!

Almost crawling!!

Seeing if Grandma can tempt her to move further

Up!

Andi has moved past "G" sounds and is now also starting to incorporate some "B" sounds.  Occasionally she'll look up at me, give me a huge smile, and just start babbling "bababababa".  I love it.  In other mouth news, she also now has 2 teeth!!!  The first one popped through last week and didn't seem to bother her much, but the second one came through this past weekend and started to affect her sleep a bit (still the same happy baby during the day, though).  We gave her some acetaminophen and lots of snuggles and I think we're over the first hump now.  We're putting those new teeth to use though on all of the new foods that Andromeda is eating!  She has become a food lover and wants to try everything that anyone else is eating (including the kids at daycare, which the teachers there find super amusing).  In addition to last month's foods, Andi is now also eating broccoli, toast (she'll basically eat anything as long as you put it on bread...), hummus, eggs, cheese, apples, oatmeal, salami, homemade jerky, dried pear, a tuna sandwich (like I said, anything on bread), hamburgers, sweet potatoes (in tater tot form) and rice crackers.  Some of it she just gums and doesn't really "eat", like the apples and jerky.  Other stuff she gnaws at enough to actually make a dent, like the salami, broccoli and dried pear.  And other things she is full on eating as much as she can get, like the toast, hummus, avocado, nectarines (her favorite!), watermelon, and rice crackers.  She's not totally a fan of the eggs or oatmeal yet, but she was game to try.  It is endlessly entertaining.

First broccoli encounter.  If we eat it and pretend like she can't have any, it's a guaranteed way to at least get her to try it...

Avocado toast and scrambled eggs.

Gnawing on an apple and some salami.

Hummus toast, eggs, and cheese.  The hummus toast is one of her new favorites.

Finally a sweet potato victory thanks to some tater tots!

My parents came to visit us at the end of June and Andromeda had a lot of fun hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa!  It had been 4 months since they'd last seen her and so Andi got to show off all of her new skills and eating habits.  My mom and dad have a surprisingly large number of friends in Houston, so we spent the weekend with a revolving door of visitors and Andromeda charmed them all.  We get to see Grandma and Grandpa again this coming month and we're really excited!

Happy kiddo with Grandma and Grandpa Weeds!

Some quick grandma snuggles before Andi was on the go again!

The other fun event from this past month was Andi's first swim lessons!  We have a lot of friends with pools, not to mention all of our family in Florida, so we want to start Andromeda on pool safety and learning to swim now.  We had an orientation class this past weekend and Andi was a champ.  No tears.  She doesn't LOVE the water, but I think she's curious about it, so it's a good start.

First swim lesson!

 Here are a few other fun pictures from the last month:

Wiggly little snuggle bug!

Using her endless cuteness to advertise for Uncle K

Puzzle fun

Just, you know, chilling in the laundry basket...

Obviously S's influence...

Baby's first beer??  She didn't actually get any, but like I said, she wants to try EVERYTHING we have

And mommy's influence...

And now that she's getting more mobile, this month's staged photo with the 7 Month sign was a bit more challenging.  Here are a few entertaining outtakes...

Very first shot she grabbed the paper and tried to eat it.  Also for shots 2-7...

And trying for a repeat on shot 8.

Seriously... now you know why the paper was a bit crumbled

Her new thing is clasping her hands together.  I'll take it as it means she couldn't grab the paper AGAIN

Andromeda is Half a Year Old!!!

Andromeda has officially passed the half year mark and I have to say it went by a lot faster than I was expecting given how slow it felt at times along the way (lack of sleep plays a strong role in perception...) At 6 months old, Andi weighs a whopping 15 lbs and is 26 inches long.  And I swear she packed on a good bit of that in just the last week.  I picked her up in the car seat carrier the other day and though "whoa, this is actually starting to feel heavy to me".  In terms of skill development, Andromeda can now sit upright by herself and is pretty darn sturdy when she does so.  She can lean in various directions and push herself back to upright as well.  And she prefers to be sitting upright whenever possible, a preference she has become quite vocal about in her stroller and the bathtub.  She discovered her "G" sounds.  Everything is "a-GA!"  In other vocal news, she now laughs as well and it is absolutely delightful!  It never fails to put a smile on our faces!  Andi has also discovered her feet and loves to grab them and use them to push at and feel things.  We've been working on tummy time too, which isn't her favorite, but she's starting to get really good at it!  In general this is a really fun age and we're loving watching Andi develop her skills and communicate with us more.

Sitting up like a big girl!

Chilling out on the patio in her fancy new chair with the deceivingly well behaved pups!

Combination tummy time and play time.  Getting strong!

Andromeda's new favorite place to hang out is the rug in our master bedroom.  It's a plush shag rug (meant to to muffle the sound of animal paws on the creaky wood floors in there) that she can sit on for hours and play with, so we've taken to hanging out with her in there when she gets fussy.  It's also a good area for morning stretches with daddy and kitty watching.

The cutest picture from behind while she marvels at the carpet.

Weekend stretches with daddy!

Sleep is getting better but still not stellar.  Andromeda can fall asleep on her own for bedtime and naps.  Naps were pretty crappy for a while (30 minutes max at home) but they're starting to improve.  Thankfully she takes some pretty decent naps at daycare.  She still wakes up 2-3 times per night to eat.  More when she's hitting a growth spurt or developmental milestone.  Those nights are pretty rough on me, especially when they fall on a work night.  But we're working on it.  And when she's awake during the day, even if she only took a cruddy 30 minute nap, she is usually the happiest, most smiley and cheerful baby, so we really can't complain too much.  Here are a few more pictures of our adventures from this past month.

Outfit #2 of the morning for both mommy and kiddo after a literal shit show...

Helping mommy bake!

First pool excursion since we last tried around 2 months old.  This time was more successful, though she remained slightly unsure.

Early dinner out at daddy's favorite brewpub!

And the final new development of the month is Andi's introduction to solid foods!  We are attempting to do a Baby Lead Weaning (BLW) approach where we give Andromeda large pieces of soft foods that she can pick up and feed to herself.  We've also tried a few spoon fed foods.  It's been going so-so.  Our first food that we tried a few times in both chunk and pureed form was sweet potatoes and Andi is firmly in the "hell no" camp when it comes to sweet potatoes.  Behold:

This started as chunks of steamed sweet potato.  It made its way onto her eyebrows, but not one piece of it entered her mouth...

Our first attempt with pureed sweet potatoes did not go well.

We have had better luck with other foods since the Sweet Potato Debacle of 2018.  So far Andromeda will happily pick up and feed herself bananas, nectarines, avocado, and watermelon.  Kid definitely has a bit of a sweet tooth.  We have tried carrots too and she's still eh on that one, so we'll keep working on it.  She likes to try eating what we're eating and I don't want to discourage her interest in food, so she's also had a taste of my grilled cheese sandwich, a piece of Uncle K's smoked brisket (she is a HUGE fan of this and gummed it to pieces - such a little Texan!), and a couple small spoonfuls of plain tart frozen yogurt.  I took advantage of that last one and had her try plain greek yogurt and she was a pretty big fan of that too.  Last food we tried was oatmeal and she was only "eh" so we'll keep working on it.  Coming up on the menu are zucchini, applesauce, and broccoli.

Mmmmm, banana!

Absolutely everything around her gets covered in green when she eats avocados...

 

Uncle K had us over for some smoked meats on Memorial Day

Texas baby enjoying some smoked brisket!

Successful taste test with watermelon

Weekend breakfast with mommy and daddy - we had eggs and toast and Andi had watermelon and brisket!

At the end of month 6 we had a family photo shoot with a photographer, so I'll work on getting those posted once we get them back.  Our sneak peaks so far look fantastic!  So that's it!  One half of a year with this sweet little peanut: