Eight is Great

Our little girl is already eight months old.  I get sad thinking how fast these past eight months has gone and realize our little baby won't be a baby much longer.  I am keeping a journal for her where I write down monthly how much she has grown, her developmental milestones, our feelings about her and any cute things she has done that make her unique.  

Here is a sampling of her 8 month progress report:

• Elisabeth chortles whenever she sees, tastes or does something she likes.  Our house is filled with little "Ha ha!" laughs throughout the day. 
• Elisabeth gets really excited when her Papa comes home from work and rewards him with a squeal of delight and arms that flap up and down in elation.
• She loves to read books.  She especially loves when we make sound effects for animals or change our voices with different characters.
• Elisabeth is VERY particular about her likes and dislikes.  When we have story time, often she will peer over the book we are reading at the time at another book on the floor.  This is her way of indicating to us she would rather read the other book.
• Elisabeth's play is very focused and intense, filled with curiosity.  One of her favorite pasttimes is to take the DVDs off of the bookshelf.  While doing so, she stops to scrutinize every DVD case before gently pushing it aside.  She has also figured out how to dump out her toys from their boxes - even ones that are tightly sealed.
• Sofi the Beagle is her best friend and vice versa.  Just yesterday I came into the living room to witness Sofi piling all of her squeaky toys and balls into Elisabeth's lap.  Sofi then sat next to the baby, cocked her head like she does to us, and barked at the baby to play fetch with her.  Elisabeth rewards Sofi by patting her fur and pulling on her collar. Sofi especially loves when Elisabeth will reach down her hands from her highchair after dinner so that Sofi can help her wash the baby food off.  We should really stop this but when Elisabeth giggles uncontrollably as Sofi licks her, we can't help but smile and overlook this behavior. 
• Elisabeth is already communicating in her own way.  She has said "Mama" once while looking directly at me (does this count for her first word?) and usually adds a few "mamas" in her cries, says "na na na" whenever she is done or doesn't want to do something (like go to bed) and likes to make a buzzing sound when she is playing.  
• Elisabeth is officially a crawler!  Though she prefers the "army crawl", she has started to crawl normally on all fours and is always on the move.