Retta at 8 Months

Whoa, wait...what's with being all vertical?!

My little love turned 8 months old on Sunday and to mark the occasion she decided to start crawling. I swear that little bugger heard me tell person after person that with Rowan we were so enthusiastic for her to reach every new developmental milestone but with the second one I was not going to encourage mobility, so she decided to crawl 2 months sooner. Once Rowan started trucking around the house, constant vigilance was required...you just sit down for two seconds and then, "Oh no! Sweetie, we don't eat cat food!" Less than a minute later: "Ooops! No, no! Chewing on electrical cords is not a safe recreational hobby!"...and of course, then you find yourself saying, "Shoes are not for licking!" So, that's what we're doing now. Don't get me wrong...I am thrilled and thankful to have a healthy, thriving little lady about the house, but we are all adjusting to this new phase of movement. We are also discovering that Retta has lots of tricks up her sleeve, like her ability to be on all fours crawling and then suddenly she's doing a perfect downward dog yoga pose. Yesterday I caught her stuck in an awkward split, and this afternoon I glanced at her and she was doing plank pose. Future yogi or circus contortionist? Time will tell, but her antics have been keeping us entertained. Over the past month Retta also sprang her first tooth-- a cute little white bump front and bottom center, and she started eating lots more finger foods. This has made us think about the merits of a dog, because the floor crumbs have increased at an exponential rate, and every time I pick her up out of her booster seat she has about 76 pieces of dehydrated apple chunks and cereal puffs stuck to her butt. It is such a fun stage though between the grinning, laughing, babbling, morning smiles, and perhaps my favorite new trick she's learned: playing peekaboo. A couple of weeks ago she was sitting on our bed and picked up a shirt from the laundry pile and lifted it up over her head, then yanked it down with a big grin and did it again...I realized she was trying to play a game with me! Whenever I'd say "Peek-a..." she'd pull the shirt up over her head, and when I'd say, "BOO!" she would bring the shirt down to her lap and giggle. So cute. I don't think I'd ever get tired of playing that game with her. Looking forward to the next month and what cute mayhem Christmas + baby brings!