I wanted to include pictures with Carissa’s 7-3/4 month update, but never got around to it. Here she is–8-1/2 months. . . big blue eyes, crawling everywhere, smiling eternally, spunky as can be, 6 teeth–with more on the way.
I can’t imagine a more fun, perpetually-happy baby!
She is pure delight every day.
In my perfect blogging world, I would write “milestone” posts for each child: Describing personalities, how each child looked, how he or she acted, words they were saying, where they were at developmentally. And I would write these posts regularly: One month. Three months. Six months. Nine months. . . And for each child . . .
Yeah. . .
So far I think I’ve written one or two of these. Given that I have three children under four, I’m obviously behind!
For weeks now, I’ve been planning Carissa’s “6-Month” post. Then suddenly she was seven months old, and now–in just a week–she will eight months already! Amazing.
So here is a snapshot of Carissa at eight months old:
“Spunky” is the best way to describe my little Cutey Face. She officially began crawling around 7-1/2 months. She’s definitely my earliest crawler. After just a few days of the army crawl, she got up on all four and started rocking back and forth. With ease, she rolls, crawls, sits back up, and often extends both legs with her feet flat on the floor, as if she’s trying to stand straight up in the middle of the room without help! Probably her favorite activity is crawling around the room, chasing a beach ball. Of course, her brother loves to tease her by taking the ball away–or pushing it away, right before she gets to it. She loves the Disney “pop-up” toy, and feel compelled to push each of the characters down.
Carissa also pulls herself up in her crib, on toys and boxes–but she only gets as far as her knees. Usually she can “roll” into her fall and bounce right back. She loves toys that play music, and she “turns them on” and sits, bouncing to the beat.
Just last week I started putting her in the bathtub, instead of in the baby bath. She loves it! And more than the other two (at this age), she bravely crawled after toys that kept floating away.
She likes nothing better than being thrown up in the air! She laughs and laughs almost hysterically, and so contagiously, with a huge toothy smile. When you stop throwing her up, she will try to climb your shoulder, as if she plans to get up back in the air all by herself. I say that she is going to be my amusement-park-kid! The one who loves rides and thrills, adventure and living-on-the-edge.
She babbles all the time. If she really wants your attention and she’s not getting it, she will just scream glaring straight at you and then blink, very deliberately, and flash another grin.
Every morning she and Big Sister sit and talk and play until 7 AM, when I go to see them. I’m never quite sure what Mara is teaching Carissa, but I am sure that she is learning a LOT.
Micah adores his little sister. Whenever he comes into a room and sees her, his eyes melt and he says, “Hi, baby doll! Hi, baby doll!” In the grocery store last week, they were sitting together in the shopping cart (two-seats—Yay!) and he had his arm around her shoulders and kept leaning over to kiss her on her cheek. He was getting a lot of attention for that!
Carissa has a voracious appetite–she can eat 2 6-oz jars of baby food and a bowl of rice cereal in one meal! Unfortunately, this month she also completely quit nursing. She cries if I try to nurse her–this started the week that Tooth #5 and Tooth #6 came in–the week she also had a cold. Not sure why but she just won’t nurse. Thankfully, she will take breastmilk in a bottle, but wow, she is making life a lot more difficult! We are not ready to break down and buy formula yet, so I am pumping. And yes, I definitely miss nursing–it was so much faster, so much easier than pumping and feeding bottles!!!
On October 30, she weighed a healthy 19 lbs.–still on the upper end of the percentiles chart.
It’s hard to condense a precious little person into a blog post. And it’s even harder without pictures. But while I’ve waited for a chance to attach pictures to this post, she turned eight months old–so I figured I’d better just publish this now. . . before her first birthday.
Friday was IHOP’s “Kid’s Free Scary-Face-Pancake Day,” and to celebrate our first fever-free day in almost two weeks I decided to take the kids.
Their lunch would be free. I wouldn’t have to clean up.
Their lunch would be fun. I wouldn’t have to tell anyone to eat their food.
And the best part: They could play with their food, and I wouldn’t have to correct them.
It was a complete win-win scenario for me!
Micah is not used to going out to eat. I’ll have to say we went out to eat a lot more when we had just one child. With three kids under age four? Well, it’s just more complicated. Plus we’re aggressively trying not to spend money, so eating out (typically) isn’t in the budget right now.
We took our seats, and the waiter brought Mara and Micah crayons and a page to color.
Micah pushed his crayons away and turned to face the waiter. “No,” he says. “Want can-cake! [pancake]”
He was so excited for these pancakes–maybe I hyped him up too much–but thankfully his speech isn’t very clear yet, so the waiter didn’t seem to understand what he was saying–or else just graciously ignored him.
When the pancakes arrived, each child looked in awe at the whipped cream and strawberries. And then I showed them the mini Oreos (to decorate the eyes) and the candy corn for the mouth.
Predictably, Mara meticulously decorated her face–just like the picture on the menu.
On the other hand, Micah’s treats didn’t stand a chance! He crammed several into his mouth, and then seeing Mara decorating, he dumped the rest of them in the middle of his pancake and smashed them down.
It was a fun outing to watch and undoubtedly a yummy lunch to eat. Needless to say, we’re not adding this to our menu, but to quote Micah, “Oh wow! How fun!”
As we left, I was digging for my keys and Mara knelt down on the mat in front of the door and said “Oh look! It says the name! I – H- O – P!”
That was the first time I really noticed her making a “word” connection, rather than a letter connection. Although, thinking back, the mat may have had the “logo” on it instead of just the name.–I can’t remember. I didn’t take a picture. 😉
Here’s an update, for those of you who know and love Mara’s imaginary friend, Tosta.
“Why do you always call Tosta my ‘maginary friend’?” Mara asked. “She’s not ‘maginary any more. She’s real.”
Soooo now that we’ve settled that. . .
Poor Tosta was apparently hit by a car earlier this week, so Mara says of her real (imaginary) friend. It sounded rather brutal–the car hit her and then she went under the car! “And that’s why she has a bruise on her forehead,” Mara explained.
This morning, Mara announced: “Tosta is going to the eye dentist today.”
“That would be the eye doctor,” I corrected. “Eye doctors look at your eyes. Dentists look at your teeth.”
Without missing a beat, she replied, “Actually? . . . it is the eye dentist, because he looks at her eyes and her teeth.”
Mara has been talking for months about how she is going to dress up as Tinkerbell for Halloween.
In a beautiful story (which I will unfold in another post), Mara received a butterfly costume today from a complete stranger on freecycle.
I hope I never forget Mara’s response. She told me she was going to thank God for her butterfly costume, and then, with a huge smile and beautiful sparkling eyes, she added, “I wanted a Tinkerbell costume, but God thinked of a plan and said, ‘No, Mara, I’ll give you the greatest butterfly costume ever!'”
Mara couldn’t have been happier.
Simple as they were, her words convicted my heart.
How often do I ask God for “Tinkerbell” [or fill-in-the-blank with my desires] and God decides to give me something else?
Do I recognize that it was God who gave? whether it fulfilled my heart’s longings or was the opposite of what I wished?
Romans 8 tells us that “All things work together for good, to those who are called according to His purpose.” His purpose for His children is two-fold: first, God’s own glory, and second, our Christlikeness. God is often seen as most glorious when we praise Him through suffering. We often reflect Christ most during the hard times of life; He died for us on the cross to show His love; in the same way, we show our love for Christ and others through selflessness and sacrifice.
Sometimes we think what it is “good” for us is what makes us happy or what keeps us healthy (or alive) or what will make us successful or prosperous financially. But “good” in Romans 8 means that which gives God glory and makes us more like our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Since His plans for our lives accomplish both His glory and our Christlikeness, they are as Mara said the “greatest ever.”
God, help me to look at my life and see it as it is: a gift from your hand! From each breath I take to the “big things” in life and all the way down to the Halloween costumes. . . what You give me, Lord, is the Greatest Ever!