Month 8

Dear Lia,

You turned 8 months yesterday! And it seems if you learned a million new things last month, this month, you learned a billion.



You seem to have reached a rut in terms of gross motor skills. You crawl and stand and cruise like anyone, and you're trying to do more, but can't. You like to get on all fours on the floor and then shift from your knees to your feet, and then you sort of wave your butt in the air as if you're trying to figure out how to get from all fours to upright but you simply can't do it yet, so you fall back to your butt. Sometimes you get up to standing in your crib and then let go, trying to stand on your own. It works for a couple of seconds but you still fall on your butt. You're scaring your Lola Cora, and Yaya and Daddy by these antics but Mommy's cool about it because all the Lapid babies are like that. Uncontrollable climbers! FINALLY you're displaying some of Mommy's genes. Maybe you look like your Daddy on the outside, but you've got a bit of Mommy in you.



So, since you can't get up and run yet, you've focused on other skills in the past four weeks. You now know how to wave bye bye and clap your hands. You've been fascinated with your hands this month, often raising your hand up in the air and looking at it as if declaming Shakespeare, twisting your hands around, and clasping them together. I've been doing baby signs on you the past two months but you haven't done any signs yet. There was one morning though, you woke up and I was still sleepy so Daddy picked you up to bring you downstairs for your "morning walk" (go to Lola Cora's house to play with Lolo and Lola) but you did the sign of "milk" so Daddy put you back down beside me and we nursed. Wow! Except you did the sign again after, when you were already full, and again in random parts of the day when we knew you weren't hungry. So I guess it was just a coincidence. Nevertheless, I am persisting in teaching you signs and truly believe you will eventually sign back to me. I'm so excited for the day we can communicate through sign language. I think it will be soon because you're already so good at Clap Clap Clap! And Bye Bye!



Although I wouldn't be surprised if you skip the signing and go straight to talking right away. You are a very chatty baby! Well, you have been since you were four months old but you have since added a lot of sounds to your repertoire. This month you've taken to low grunting. "Huh. Huh. Huh." And making a high pitched "Aaaaaaaaa...." You've also developed a peculiar habit of twisting your tongue while talking. We have no idea why you do that, except perhaps to show off.

One night, when I was trying to get you to sleep in your crib again, you refused to settle down and cried and cried. And I was so tired I just wanted to let you cry until you fell asleep but suddenly, you cried "Mommeeeeh!" and that did it for me. I couldn't let you think you were being punished when you didn't do anything wrong. So I picked you up and comforted you and nursed you. But in the end, I still made you sleep in your crib that night. Our battle of wills has begun, Lia. It will probably last until you become an adult. Let's not battle too much, ok? Just do whatever I say.



You've been eating more and better this month. Still only one meal a day, but now it's hardly a problem shoveling food in your mouth. In fact, you now eat double what you used to eat last month. You've also tasted more food, like watermelon, pears, potatoes and kalabasa. Three days ago, you finished a whole banana (ground, of course) and after that, your poop became small and hard little balls. I gave you papaya the day after, and yesterday but you are still constipated. Today we started you with prune juice, diluted in water, but you don't like it very much, you take one sip from the bottle, make an "ew!" face and sort of gag. So we have to follow it up with water. We still have to see if I can get you to drink more during the rest of the day. Oh well, your constipation is another sign of you inheriting something from me. But the farting, Oh the farting! That's definitely from your Daddy.

People have started to say you're getting thinner. But you haven't lost any weight (I know, cause you're HEAVY), you're just becoming longer (taller) and leaner, with all the crawling, standing, climbing and bouncing you've been doing. You're also up to two beautiful little teeth. And you've been very difficult to take photos of because you're moving around so much most of your pictures are blurry.


Still, your existence is my joy and every difficult night is erased from my heart by just a single two-tooth smile. My favorite new trick of yours is "Lambing" when you come up to me and just lean your head on my chest. I don't know where you learned it but it's like all the sweetness in the world was concentrated into that one gesture. I only hope you can already tell that I love you so much with all my being, and that you be sure of this for the rest of your life.

Love, Mommy