Sylvia ~ A long overdue update

The summer months have flown past, without leaving me a whole lot of brain oomph at the end of most days. (Last night I was thinking that my brain felt the equivalent of toasted coconut rattling around up there!)  One thing that has been repeatedly shoved to the side, much to my sadness, has been regular updates on our girls.  This blog is the closest I come to journaling and I hope that I don't miss any of the important things.

On the evening of October 22, when Sylvia was 7 1/2 months, she graduated from sleeping in her pak'n'play - crammed into Mama & Daddy's room - to sleeping in the crib in her own room, the new nursery room upstairs in the addition. Since the sides of the crib are wooden, she bumped around a few times through the night, but did just fine.  I, on the other hand, felt a gaping void when I went to our room to go to bed... and throughout the night and in the morning when I woke up.  As much as I was so very ready to have her in her own room, it was still achingly strange.  I quickly grew accustomed to the new setup and it works out very well on all fronts.  I am grateful for the unplanned time she was in our room, but I'm also grateful that she now has a room of her own. :)

Sylvia's first night in the crib.

On October 28, Sylvia's very first tooth finally came through!  It was her bottom left tooth.  She had a few nights of waking up between 12:30 and 1 (always just as I was getting into deep sleep, it seemed) and would cry enough that I would go to her and usually nurse her to get her to go back to sleep.  Otherwise, she was a very easy teether.  Over this past Thanksgiving weekend, her bottom right tooth came through (I think on Saturday, November 24th).  Now her 2 front, top teeth are quickly getting into position to come through, but she is retaining her title of easy-teether so far.  One thing that threw me for a loop a bit was looking back through Susannah's baby pictures from the same age, and seeing Susannah with teeth well established already by this age.  I had not noticed that Sylvia was "late" in teething, but we are all different and she is getting along just fine how God is making her. :)

She loves books, and often I will give her a

board book to look at after she has finished her 

meal and while the bigger people finish eating.

Sylvia loves her Daddy. :)  We don't specifically read to Sylvia a whole lot yet, but on this late evening, I was reading to Susannah and Daniel was reading to a very tired Sylvia. :)

She continues to scoot instead of crawl.  For at least a month now, she does get up on all fours and will rock back and forth, but she is content to army crawl wherever she needs to go when she is on the floor.  One thing that she does once in a while is get up on her hands and FEET, so that she resembles a triangle.  I'm not sure how she manages to do it and not tip over sideways, but she does it!  Then after she's been up for a few seconds, she flops back down either to her knees or stomach.
She has not figured out how to get into the sitting position yet, but that is ok; she is happy and content how she is right now. :)

It took her a lot of practicing, but she finally figured out how to eat cheerios.  The first several times she would put one in her mouth and just gag and choke and have a very hard time.  Now I can regularly feed them to her as part of a meal or snack and she loves them.

Other foods that she eats are: homemade rice and oatmeal cereals, peaches, pears, kiwi, mango, avocado, green beans, peas, squash, sweet potato, mashed potato, egg yolks, plain yogurt and cottage cheese.

This walker is another favorite mode of transportation and entertainment.  Some would say that it is delaying development, but I say "whatever". :)  She is getting pretty good at navigating, but if she gets stuck somewhere, she does a good job of protesting loudly enough for a big person to hear and help her get un-stuck. :P

Another thing I want to note while updating is that she has quickly become a fast-to-smile little girl, just like Susannah was.  She LOVES to smile, and will smile and often even "talk" to anyone who smiles or talks to her.  Her current vocabulary consists of a grunt-sound that sounds like "uh".  It is fun to have pretend conversations with her... especially when she is considering doing a great no-no and looking at the cat food with great longing.  She will lie there and look at it and "uh! uh! uh!" and we will say things like "it really is beautiful, isn't it?  But you can't eat it."  ... "uh! uh!"  ... "I know, you want to taste it, but it's for kitty cats, not for little girls."... and stuff like that. :)  Speaking of cats, she gets very excited anytime she spies one of our indoor/outdoor cats.  I think our cat, Chubby, isn't quite as enamored with her, but I look forward to the day that Sylvia can enjoy Chubby gently and Chubby not mind. :)

Well, that about wraps up what I have for a 6, 7, 8... and a half month update on our "Pumpkin Pie".  (On Sunday night, when I got back into the car after a quick run in to Kroger - Daniel was in the car with the girls - I said "Hi, Susannah!".  Susannah then told me that "This - pointing to herself - is Sunshine, and this - pointing to Sylvia - is Pumpkin Pie."  Since then, when I've asked her which is which, she keeps it the same!)