Quick update at 8 months

Vivian is making some forward progress with her crawling (the password is 'vivian'). Luckily she's slow enough that our leisurely efforts toward baby-proofing are enough so far.  She still gets backed under things (or in things like toy boxes, like this pic) and then has trouble because she can't push backward to sitting, which is her favorite maneuver.

Her top left tooth (her 3rd) broke through on July 23.  It doesn't seem to have bothered her much.

She's added consonants to her babbling; so far we've heard 'b' and 'v' and perhaps a 'w'. When she's fussing during a diaper change or in the car, I can engage her by starting off "ba ba ba" and she'll respond. And we've all been singing the beach boy song (ba ba ba, ba ba baran) because of it.

She's finally made it to two naps-- she adjusted easily to the much longer wake time required for this. It helps that we're usually out of the house doing something with the older kids. It's really opened up our schedule-- the first weekend, the whole family watched a local bike race one day and went swimming the next. And the oddest thing: a weekend spent camping seems to have reset her morning wake time.  It seems that the sleep deficit created by staying up late actually jumped her from 5:40 am to after 7 am. This *never* happenend with Adi and Mae so we're appreciating it while it lasts!

Three sisters in the bath:

Drawings

Side walk chalk

Adi's 'sun and blue sky' [latter is greenish, on the left]

 Mae's 'water and fish' [still working on those 'consonant digraphs']

Recent developments

One of V's favorite games right now is rolling a ball. [Passwords to all videos on this page is her name, no caps. Yes, this is a spelling test, her name ends with -ian.]

She is rolling more and more; it is definitely not safe to place her on a bed anymore. I'm having trouble nursing her in bed because she likes to roll off and check out the objects on the nightstand. I guess it isn't unusual but I'm surprised by her complete lack of self-preservation instinct; I'll be holding her half on the bed and she's still trying to roll further to reach whatever has piqued her interest.

From a sitting position, she launches her self forward and ends up with one leg stuck underneath her. If she's feeling up to it, she can push herself forward to lie flat on her tummy; otherwise she just complains until someone comes to rescue her.

And she does seem to want a lot of rescuing these days.   My actions are suddenly important-- she cries when I leave the room or walk by her and she remembers she wants me to hold her. Although she gives lots of smiles to her grandparents, nanny, sisters and Daddy, it seems that she has distinguished me from the hordes and knows she can get me to pick her up if she squeaks enough.  I think I've been encouraging it; since she is a single baby, it isn't often difficult for me to tote her around. And since I'm usually distracted with the big girls, I don't want to listen to her fuss.

Here are some older videos of Adi and Mae playing with her. 

Learning to crawl...

Can be no fun!