8 months old already?

Today my sweet baby girl turned 8 months old. Unfortunately, I waited until right before bedtime to take her picture and she definitely was not in the mood so I'll have to try again tomorrow afternoon. I can't believe how much she has grown and how quickly the time has gone by. She has been very healthy except for one issue with her left ear. Shortly after Sofia started daycare she had her six month well child exam. Her pediatrician, Dr. Mathis, who we absolutely love, noticed that she had a nasty ear infection in her left ear. She has had a hard time shaking the ear infection and we've been told that tubes may be in our future. Sofia's last visit was a week ago and after a few different antibiotics her left ear is finally starting to improve! We are so thankful because we would really like to put off tubes/surgery as long as possible. Other than Sofia's left ear, she is a very happy and healthy little girl.

Stats:
8 months old
21 lbs 2 oz and 28.5 inches long (95th percentile for height, weight, and head size)
Wearing 12-18 month old clothing

Developmental highlights:

• Sofia can crawl, but only backwards. She gets pretty excited when she starts moving but frustrated that she can't go forward. Overall though, she is not much of a crawler. She is very content to sit and reach and play with whatever is near her. Supposedly Tim was the exact same way as a baby :)
• She loves to stand and take small steps along the furniture.
• Sofia has almost completely weaned from nursing which is bittersweet for me.
• She eats a lot of different fruits and vegetables, most of which we steam and puree for her. She can feed herself a graham cracker and puffs. She has also learned she can feed Frodo.
• Sofia likes fruit juice in small amounts, she is getting better at drinking out of a cup as well. We definitely have to help her hold the cup but she does pretty well with drinking.
• She is definitely enjoying using her voice, we hear a lot of dada, baba, the occasional mama, oh, uh oh, and she's been experimenting with the p and f sounds recently. It's so fun to watch her learn and grow.
•  Still loves peek-a-boo but is now able to try to "hide" herself. She thinks if she can't see me that I can't see her, it's absolutely hysterical. Sometimes she falls over from laughing so hard.
• Still loves dancing with her Mom and Dad. She has loved this since she was itty bitty. When she was only a few weeks old and a little fussy she would always calm down with a little bit of James Taylor and dancing.
• Sofia is obsessed with our dog, Frodo. She is always looking for him and I think he is her biggest motivation to crawl/move. Frodo is becoming more interested in Sofia now that she eats more table food. They are quickly becoming the best of friends. Sofia also finds Frodo hilarious, almost anything he does makes her smile or laugh.
• She still loves her bath time and playing in water.
• She is a very social girl who doesn't like to miss anything. Sometimes we have a hard time getting her to nap during the day because she just wants to play, play, play.
• Sofia has always been a great sleeper at night, she sleeps from 7:30/8:00pm until about 6:00am every morning.

I'll leave you with a picture from our weekend. We had Tim's brother, Christopher, and his girlfriend Emily visit us. They arrived on Thursday evening so Sofia was able to stay home and play with them all day Friday while Tim and I were at work. Friday night we took the group to a great Ethiopian restaurant in Memphis and then we all indulged in YoLo, a new frozen yogurt bar in town. Saturday we enjoyed the Memphis Farmer's Market, a visit to Jones Orchard for pumpkins and the corn maze and Tim and I were able to go out on a date!! With most of our family far away this doesn't happen very often, Tim and I were definitely grateful for a night out. We experienced our first rainy day in about two months and decided to try finger painting with Sofia, she wasn't quite sure what to think at first but started to enjoy it more as time went on. This weekend my parents will be visiting from Wisconsin! Time flies when you're having fun.