The Curtis Diaries : Month 8

This has been by FAR the biggest month in her sweet little life! So many changes!

Claire loves: mama and daddy, eating real food, other peoples' attention, paper, crawling to places she's not supposed to, making funny faces, books and eating paper

She does not love: getting teeth, long car rides

She's tried almost all foods (no honey). There's not much she doesn't like, but she loves cheese, puffs, fruit, and deli meat the most. According to my scale at home she's 20.8lbs.

- She started crying and peeking over her bumper watching for me to come in and get her.
- She pulled herself up to a standing position while holding on to her walker on 6/22.
- Got herself from the crawling position back to sitting up on 6/24.
- Got herself from laying on her belly to sitting position on 6/27. She loves to use this new trick in her crib!
- Pulled up in her crib on 6/29. Had to lower the mattress.
- She dances every time she plays with her walker or piano.
- 6/30 started trying to bear crawl.
- Now that she can sit herself up, she likes to play in her crib and has started "playing herself to sleep".
- As of 7/1 she still has both bottom teeth buds and the top right front tooth is budding. No breakthrough, but lots of restless nights and nap times.
- She loves clapping her hands together or holding things and clapping them together.
- She LOVES music. When she hears it, she dances. She has a piano and drum that she likes. She dances when she claps toys together.
- She waves.
- She responds to different parts of TV shows.
- She makes a "hi" sound, a "da" sound and "mm" when she's sad. She talks a lot.
- She's learned how to make a sucking sound with her tongue and how to blow raspberries.
- She had her first Fourth of July and got to celebrate with the Curtis/Hodges family. All of the cousins got to meet her and she got some great snuggles.
- She was a CHAMP with late nights and crazy days while we moved.
- We packed up and moved into a new home.
- She's starting to flirt and become bashful at the same time. She lays her head on my shoulder when people talk to her.
- As of 7/6 she has taken 4 "crawls".
- Crawled across the room looking at herself in the iPhone on 7/9.
- Found out she had Hand Foot and Mouth Virus. She had a couple of days where she was very whiney. She also wasn't nursing well and was waking at night every 2.5-3 hours. I was ready to let her cry it out to get back on a sleeping schedule, but decided I should make sure she wasn't sick first...turns out she was. She had sores in her mouth and bumps around her mouth.
- When she sees me getting ready to feed her, she laughs and makes a sucking motion.
- She cocks her head to the side almost anytime she sees someone.
- She mimics growls, laughs, claps, and "spits".
- Went to a drive in movie to see "Inside Out". She didn't sleep a wink, but was a very good girl.
- Her front bottom left tooth popped up on 7/11.
- She eats and plays with everything she's not supposed to. She's a tad mischievous... She laughs when I say "no". I even had to seat her hand once and she giggled.
- She looks at Andrew when I say "where's dada". She gives me a kiss when I ask, "Can mama have a kiss?"
- Now that she crawls, she loves to find the vent under the refrigerator, paper, shoes, cords the vacuum and door stoppers.
- When I come home from being away (very rare occurrence) she does this laugh/cry mix when she sees me.
- We met Cash Seals and Claire met Brooke for the first time on 7/15.
- I tried giving Claire a formula bottle to see if it would help her take a bottle. She didn't hate it, but didn't finish it. Then she put up everywhere...
- She pretends to read books.
- She nods yes when she sees something she wants.
- We started "sleep training" again on 7/18. We had an open full week of nothing to do before guests were coming.

This is how it went:
NIGHT ONE: out later for a birthday party, down by 9:30. Up at 1, started to fall back asleep around 1:20, but woke back up with a vengeance! Asleep around 2. Up at 5:40 for a short time. Awake by 9 (she woke up sad). NIGHT TWO: Down at 8:30. Up at 7:30. NIGHT THREE: Down by 8:30 (she took 2 amazing naps this day and 1 cat nap around 6:30). Up at 2 for around 15 minutes. Up again. I have no idea what time because I was too tired. It WAS thunder storming! NIGHT FOUR: Down by 9. More thunderstorms. Up at 12 but only for a minute. Up at 5:30 and 7:15. NIGHT FIVE: Down at 8:45. All night until 7:30! NIGHT SIX: Down by 8;45. Up at 3:30 for very short. 7:45 up for the day. NIGHT SEVEN (we had company spend the night, so I was REALLY HOPING she'd be done): Down by 8:45. Up by 3:20. I told our friends that I was going to let her cry for 5 minutes. That's just want she did -more like screamed-so I went in. 8:00 up for the day.

Claire,
You. are. something. Every ounce of you has personality and everyone notices. You light up whatever room you are in! Often times, people don't believe me if I say that you've been fussy. You have this switch that goes off when you're in public. You're a perfect angel (for that I'm thankful)! I love watching you grow and change. I feel like I can't even call you a baby anymore because you're doing so many new things every day. I could seriously eat you UP!!

I love you!
Mama