Naiya is 8 Months 02.04.10

Still one of the most laid back babies. Although she recently has discovered her voice. Mostly "dadadada" or "babababa", but at meal time she will scream really loud to let us know she needs more food. I have found myself shooshing her kindly, because I am not very fond of loud noises, especially when I'm not expecting it. In turn, Alexia now responds to Naiya's screaming with, "Naiya! Sh!" It makes me laugh and feel sad at the same time.

Naiya has sprouted two more teeth. With grace I might add. Her two front teeth on the top have come in, and not a single symptom was seen (unlike her big sister). Looking back, some of the most stressful times of Alexia being a baby was when she was teething. Woooooowee! Naiya just seems to take life in stride. Rarely cries. Pretty content doing whatever. Very much fitting the second-child mold.

She's still not consistently sleeping through the night. I just recently got the nerve to let her cry it out in the middle of the night. With Alexia, I was a nazi with creating good sleep habits. But with Naiya, it's different. I think because she rarely cries, when she does, I feel like something is terribly wrong. And her cry is a sad one. The kind that sounds like she's hyperventilating. Alexia's cry was (and still is) just plain loud and angry-sounding. DRAMATIC. (Just like her.) I have also not let her cry it out sooner in order to keep the peace with the rest of the sleeping household in the middle of the night. But last night was our first night of truly letting her cry it out. We were prepared, we turned Alexia's fan on for white noise, Ryan went in to console her and put her back in the middle of the crib (she kicks herself to the top of the bed and rams her head into the crib bars). But it worked! She went back to sleep on her own, and hopefully this will only take a few more nights until she is truly sleeping through the night.

Naiya is still nursing seven times a day. She refuses to eat pureed food, and has actually thrown up every time I've tried to give her mashed potatoes. So I've released myself from trying to feed her baby food. (Which is a relief, because I really don't like the pureed food phase. I'm too impatient.) So she sits with us for every meal, but her diet consists of bread and crackers. Mainly Graduate Puffs (we buy bulk).

Here's a photo of Naiya in all her naked glory:

She is on the road to beginning to crawl. She is rocking on all fours and will take a "step" with her hands, but then ends up on her belly. I haven't been able to wrap my mind around the fact that she is going to be mobile soon. I feel like she's too little to have four teeth and be crawling all over the place! I have experienced with both babies the feeling of not wanting them to grow out of the baby phase. I remember with Alexia, I would get upset when people would tell me how fast she's growing. But at the same time, I'm excited for Naiya to get to the 9-month mark. That was my favorite age with Alexia! My favorite memories of that age is when we would say, "yaaaaaaay!", Alexia would throw her arms up in the air and say "yay" back to us:

So I'm looking forward to Naiya doing this with us.

Naiya is wearing mainly 3-6 month clothing, some 6-9 month. She has switched to sleeping on her back. She sucks her right thumb and cuddles with her blanket, just like her big sister. Although, unlike Alexia, we rarely see Naiya sucking her thumb outside her crib. When both of the girls are tired, I have found them sharing Alexia's "bankie":

Naiya pulls at her ears when she's tired, and does not like to be rocked to sleep. She gets fidgety and annoyed when I try to read her a book before bedtime. She kicks her legs like a champ when she's excited. She loves buttons. She loves the Ergo frontpack. She has a mohawk, that sometimes looks blonde, and other times it looks almost auburn. Her eyes look like they're going to be hazel, like her Daddy's. And I have GOT to post one of Ryan's baby photos, because they are literally twins. There are moments where she reminds me so much of Sterling, her older cousin (Tanya's oldest).

Here are the girls' 8 month comparison: