8 Month Milestone

Astrid turns 8 months old today.

Here she is after her bath, chewing on her rubber ducky (with all 8 of her teeth).

At 8 months Astrid can sit up well by herself with out support. She hasn't started crawling forward yet, but she does get up onto her hands and knees and bounces in place (she's doing this more and more each day), and she can push herself backwards. When lying on her back she constantly tries to sit up. She's just started to tilt her head to one side which cracks me up.

She just loves to drop toys and watch mommy and daddy pick them up for her. In addition she loves to drag toys on the ground (not good if you have dog hair on the floor, so we have kept the dog downstairs and I sweep everyday). She now eats baby food once a day (peas, carrots, and prunes with oatmeal) in addition to her formula (and rice cereal mixed with her bottle at night).

She's been saying "baba" for sometime but now she says "dadada", and "papapa." When Uwe was out of state on business I was trying to get Astrid to say "papa" hoping that she would say it to Uwe when he got home, but it didn't happen. Instead she says "appa" a lot. Little does she know that this means dad in Korean.

Astrid responds to her name and is starting to understand the meaning of "no" (although she doesn't like it). She also comprehends the tone of my voice and laughs when I'm playing with her and stops when I catch her getting into something she shouldn't be.

Another milestone is that Astrid is getting better at putting herself to sleep. Before we would have to hold her until she was sound asleep before putting her down. Now we hold her for a bit and put her down to sleep and if she's still awake she'll turn to the side and put herself to sleep. This is especially helpful during the day when it's still bright and she can block it out and still fall asleep on her own.

Now that she's older I put two toys in her crib so that when she wakes up she can play with them for a bit and entertain herself before calling for me. This helps Uwe and I get a little more sleep in the mornings.Here is Astrid getting lotion applied by her daddy after her bath. And you better believe that the rubber ducky isn't going anywhere.

She's such a little angel and it seems that everyday she does something new. It's quite an exciting time for us.