on the move and on the edge

Growing, growing, growing, changing. That's the news on Isla. At eight months and a few weeks old, she's changing so quickly we find ourselves looking for a new skill almost daily.

Not long ago, at seven months, she could not sit unsupported. She could sit fine in her bumbo chair or in her booster seat at the dinner table. But put this little bit on the floor and her abdominal muscles could only hold her upright for a few seconds before letting her itty bitty body slump over to one side or the other. We-the-parents (or at least me-the-mama) feared it was due to not enough tummy time, or some other part of parenting we'd failed this second time around.

Thankfully, within a matter of weeks, our Bun-baby has mastered the art of sitting alone. She's also mastered the art of the tummy scoot. And she is f-a-s-t, fast, fast, fast. She can push herself up, and has recently started the typical rocking back and forth on hands and knees thing (seriously, how cute is that move?), and any moment now we expect her to start crawling full speed.

She's also eating 'real' food now, probably later than most babies, but still fine with us, since she gets nearly all her nutrition from milk. Like her sister before her, she skipped the cereal and went straight to the red stuff: sweet potatoes. Peas make her gag, and sometimes pears do, too, but she will almost always scarf down every bit of her bananas, though also like her sister, she has a strong dislike for carrots. She had her first sips of sweet tea (decaf, of course) just a few days ago from her mother's straw, and she loved it, but then, we kind of had an inkling she might.

In addition to her mad tummy-racing skills, our Isla likes to live life with an element of danger. This bitty girl moves fastest when she's headed toward something she doesn't need to get her hands (and subsequently, her mouth) on. Her tiny legs never inch up more quickly than when she's headed toward a box of choking hazards (read: big sister's toys) or any electrical cord.

Just last week she inched her twenty-seven-inch-long body right over to the bright orange carrot her sister left under the dining table, swiped it with her free hand and popped that baby right onto her tongue. Thankfully her big sister is very observant and even faster than the little sister and managed to race over herself and yank that carrot right out of the baby's mouth before the tiny daredevil choked. And even earlier that same morning, the wee one managed to work her way off the couch where she was cozily (and seemingly safely) sleeping and onto the floor. No bones were broken, no joints bruised, no tears shed, which is amazing considering the two foot drop. (Where's that baby's mother while all of this craziness is going on?)

She has one tiny tooth and she likes to run her tongue over it when she's bored. She also likes to use it to bite on baby wipes, but so far we are thankful to report that she is not a 'biter'. We pray things remain this way. There is nothing so bad in the world of infant relations as a biting child.

What does an eight-and-three-quarters-month-old-baby-isla look like??? Well, she looks like perfect sweetness. See for yourself ...