Life With Lauren: 8 months

At church two weeks ago, we sang "I Need Thee Every Hour," and while introducing it, our worship leader noted that a stay at home mom wrote the hymn. His implication was that even a stay-at-home mom needed Jesus every hour. Of course! I thought. Nothing has pointed out my own need for God's grace than staying at home with my daughter each day. It was much easier for me to ignore my need for Jesus when I was busy at work, dealing with other people's children. Raising up my own child highlights my own sin and need to become more like Him. 

That's the musings for life with Lauren at 8 months. Despite my own struggles at times, I can say that I am truly happy to be at home with Lauren. I am so thankful that I am able to! Every day there seems to be something a little more delightful about her than the previous day. I hear from friends with older kiddos that this trajectory stops around five, so I am soaking up the sweetness while it lasts.  

Weight: 18.2 lbs (between 25 & 50%)

Height: 28.5 inches (between 75 & 90%)

Skills: Sitting up by herself! Occasionally she gets really into a toy and forgets that she has to hold herself up. In those cases, she thumps back and hits her head. Fortunately, this has only happened on the carpet and a quick snuggle stops the tears. Also, she started inch worming her way around early this month and capped it off by doing a real crawl! Watch out world, here she comes.

Eating: Three meals a day. Breakfast is oatmeal + fruit, lunch is a veggie, fruit + yogurt, and dinner is a veggie  and fruit. There are copious amounts of puffs and cheerios eaten/scattered at all of these meals, as well as a bottle after each of them. Lander has taken care of the vacuuming for us. She goes bonkers when we eat apples, and occasionally I'll let her chew on one while suppervised. 

Teeth: Still none!

Sleeping: Two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes five steps back. Overall, she is getting better at sleeping, although she had quite the set back when we visited Dan's parents last weekend. Ugh!

She has slept  through the night a handful of times in this past month, so I hope the trend continues. I also hope that she is able to sleep when we go on vacation this summer, since we have at least 2 weeks where she'll need to sleep in her pack-n-play. 

Routine: Up around 7, breakfast and play, nap around 9, usually a walk, then lunch, play, nap around 1 or 2, and bed around 7:00 or 7:30. It feels pretty amazing to be able to write a routine with times attached to the different parts. She isn't very regimented, but this is the general framework of our day when we are at home. 

Fun Times: We had a great time seeing Dan's family last weekend. Lauren had lots of snuggles from everyone. One of the sweetest moments was when Tyler, Kristy, Dan and I were in the hot tub at his parents' house. Lauren had gone to bed an hour or so before, so I thought I had time to sneak in the hot tub without an issue. But, to be safe, I asked Kylie (Dan's niece) to keep an ear out for the baby monitor. After a while, she came out to tell me that Lauren was crying. By the time I got inside, little Caleb (6 years old) had gone down to the pack-n-play and was twirling his glow bracelets for her and saying, "It's okay Lauren. You don't have to cry." So stinkin' sweet. She is loved, by cousins, aunts and uncles, and her grandparents, not to mention her father and me. 

Life With Lauren: Seven Months

After Lauren's seven month appointment, the stats are in.

Length: 28" (50-75%)
Weight: 16 lbs, 5 oz (5-10%)
Head: 16" 

Skills: Rolling like crazy, front to back, back to front and across the room! She's starting to get up on her hands and knees for crawling. Her fingers are often in her mouth, especially when she is quietly observing the world. She looks around to find where our voices are coming from and usually breaks into a big grin when she spots one of us.
Sleeping: There are good days and bad days! Daytime sleeping has generally normalized into two and sometimes three naps per day, of a duration varying from 20 mins to 1 hour and 45 minutes. Night sleeping consists generally of going down between 7:30 and 8 and up 2-3+ times before her morning Daddy time at 6:45/7:00. She did well last night so I'm feeling optimistic, but there have been many days this past month when I have been extremely grumpy about her sleep. (I've had to call my sister-in-law from some pep talks about how she will eventually sleep.) We did have to resort back to swaddling one arm to help her sleep a bit more soundly.
Eating: This is one area where Lauren excels. In addition to nursing plus 12 oz of formula a day, Lauren is eating at least two meals a day. She eats fruit at lunch (2 tbsp) and veggies at dinner (1/4 cup). Everything has seemed equally pleasing to her, from spinach to sweet potatoes, prunes to pears.
Other: No teeth! I keep expecting them but not yet. She'll get really drooling and start biting on everything for a few days, and then it stops. She had a little red blood blister on her gum a couple of weeks ago, but then it went away and no tooth followed. As I know that nursing will be a little more dangerous after she gets a few, I have to admit that I am not that sad that she hasn't had any pop through.
Lauren Loves: Her stroller. She's now comfortable enough to fall asleep during walks.
Her dog, Lander. He makes her laugh oh-so-hard.
People. She smiles at everyone!
Bathtime. Splashing water on her face? She thinks it is the best thing ever. (That's must be a trait from Dan, not me!)
Being tickled. Her chuckle makes the world a better place.

Visits! We were blessed with two sets of visitors this month. Joanna, Shelley and the boys came for a few days in early April, and my parents just left yesterday after spending a few days here. Lauren loved the extra people to watch and play with, and we loved having them.