dorchadas | Eight Month Baby Update

Not quite on the actual birthday, but only a day behind this time!

Little Baby Laila continues to grow and develop. The most exciting thing that's happened in the last month is that she's started to associate sounds with concepts! Not really words, per se, since she doesn't actually treat them as discrete units of meaning, but she's heard us say mamá and papá enough when referring to each other that she recognizes those sounds refer to us. When she wants

sashagee in moments of distress, she'll look over and--while crying--start babbling "ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma" Emoji Oh dear

At least once, while

sashagee was holding her, she looked at me and started saying "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba" which is pretty close! I know it's a common sign of parental egotism to assume that those sounds your baby is making must be referring to you, but her looking at us while she does it makes it more probable.

She has, at least once, very clearly said "Laila!" but she's never done it again. Yesterday, though, she did turn and look at me while I called out her name to her in the middle of a discussion that

sashagee and I were having!

She's moved on to much more complex foods! While originally the baby food we fed her had ingredients like "blueberries" or "squash," now she's eating ones like "pumpkin pie" which has these ingredients:

pumpkin, coconut milk, apple, Japanese sweet potato, flax seed, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger

I've heard that it's important to feed babies spices when they're younger, because what they eat when they're young helps set their tastes as they get older. If so, she'll at least be used to having a bit of extra flavoring in her food!

Not sure what taste this is setting though:

She still doesn't have any teeth, though she's chomping on everything. She can sit up all by herself and keep herself up with the support of one arm!. Her balance isn't the best, and she still can't crawl yet, but she's working through all the pathways to get there. Her nine-month baby update is probably going to be full of exciting news!