Attack of the Dvorak's: 8 Months already?

It seems like the last month has flown by! I attribute that to us going on vacation and having the time of our lives.

Time waits for no one, even though I wish we could have taken that 2 weeks and had our daily schedules put on stand still until we got back, that's just not how it works. Anyway, We are back home and trying to get settled back into our routine which, if you have a baby or little one you might understand, is proving to be very difficult! Chloe is on track with her morning nap most days, but when it comes to her afternoon nap right now she only wants to nap for about 30 minutes. That's just not going to fly so we are working on it. I know eventually we should get back to the normal 4 hour nap, but for now we just go with the flow.

While being home Chloe started scooting around and less than a week later she was on her hands and knees trying to crawl. She doesn't crawl very often, she shifts her position. Imagine sitting on your butt and putting your hands on the ground in front of you and moving into a sort of downward dog position all while changing direction by about 45 to 90 degrees, that's what she does to move around.

UPDATE: I wrote this over the last couple days and now she is crawling everywhere and as of this morning she stood up all on her own! It took me a minute to process what happened, but I am so proud of her!

She has a lot of motivation too, she loves the dogs so she tries to reach them while laying down and sometimes its super easy because they will lay next to her. She then buries her face into them and squeals with excitement. Its the cutest thing in the whole world. They even bring her "gifts" (their toys) and most of the time I catch it before it goes in her mouth, but occasionally one will slip by and before I know it she is gnawing on the toy so I quickly take it from her and give it back to the dogs.

I figure it could always be worse, at least their mouths are cleaner than ours.

She has expanded her vocabulary, she now not only says dada but also baba and bubu. She has also discovered screaming, so that's super fun especially when she's mad. Most of the time she just hangs out and plays by herself. She has also started to give hugs and kisses. I don't get them very often, but her daddy sure does. I think its because she sees him less and misses him.

I am currently working on sleep training her, the last few days have been eye opening and have helped me understand more of how I should approach the whole thing. I am not big on the idea of letting her "cry it out" I personally think this approach is kind of harsh. I know a lot of people that do this and I'm glad it works for them, but I just don't agree with this approach. The approach I started with was to set her down in her crib and when she starts fussing I would pick her up until shes calm and set her back down. This just doesn't work out for us, she freaks out more when I set her down. I still nurse her at night and usually that's the reason she wakes up, she wants to nurse and put herself to sleep that way. So now that I have discovered this My new goal is to ween her from nursing at night and hopefully over the next couple weeks when she is finally weened she will sleep through the night. That's my plan as of this moment, it is subject to change.

Beside all of that, Chloe is growing and eating more veggies and fruits! She eats mostly veggies, she had pears for the first time the other day and she appeared to like them, she also appeared to like sweet potatoes until last night so we will see how it all pans out in the future.

A lot of people think she is older than she really is because her legs are so long! She's barely fitting in 9 month pants and fits better in 12 month, but her torso still fits in 3-6 month onesies. She also had a couple photo shoots this last month, we had family pictures done with my mom and sister while we were in CA done by the talented Emily Whetsler. When we got back Bianca, the photographer who did her 3 month pictures, wanted to do another photo shoot so Chloe went and was her little model for about an hour. If anyone is looking for an awesome baby/ family photographer in Rapid City, Bianca is so fabulous and her pricing is the best in my opinion! Look her up, Blink photography.

This month has been huge for milestones with her and I cant wait until next month to see all of her progress!