Happy 8 Months Rayah!

Two days ago, Rayah turned 8 months old!  While I would like to do these updates every month, I seem to only get to them every 2 months, so here goes…

Eating/Drinking – Rayah is eating a good variety of solid foods and has liked everything I’ve given her so far.   Also, as of June 8th, she is officially weaned from breastfeeding and loves drinking her bottles of formula.  She looks so cute holding it all by herself!  She has eaten some rice cracker by herself too. Along with be weaned, I cut out all night-time feedings – hooray!

  

Health – in May she got a bad yeast infection on her bum that just didn’t want to go away, so that was a bit of a battle and meant that we needed to used disposable diapers so that we could use cream on her bum.  Since then, we haven’t gone back to her cloth diapers and probably won’t go back.  The same thing happened with Justice and once you switch to disposable diapers, it’s hard to be motivated to do cloth again.   It seems like she’s also been teething for 3 months straight with nothing to show for it, but FINALLY it looks like another tooth is about to break through any day now on the top!  Also, I’m not sure how much she weighs – I need to go find out – but she is a big, fat, cute, heavy, chubby muffin! 

Firsts – Rayah went swimming and swinging for the first time!  She looks so adorable in her little pink tankini.  

She visited Auntie Nicole’s house for the first time.  She had her first nights away from mommy & daddy so that we could attend a conference that our house of prayer put on.  She did good with Grandma, but unfortunately she decided to play strange with Grandpa and would just wail and cry whenever he tried to hold her!    She also got a bumbo chair, which she has mixed feelings about, but which is super handy!

Sleeping – Rayah now goes to bed at 7:30pm and sleeps until 6:30am, which is soooo wonderful!  Her napping has fluctuated in consistency, but she has been doing really good lately.  We cut out her evening nap, so now she only has 2 naps every day at 9am and 1pm and she usually naps from 1 1/2 – 2 hours, sometimes more.  She definitely sleeps much better than Justice did and most of the time I can just swaddle her and lay her down and she falls asleep on her own, which Justice never did until MUCH later!  She has rolled onto her stomach in the night while still in her swaddle, which she hasn’t been too happy about, but has then eventually fallen asleep again.  I tried to put her to sleep unswaddled for her naps, which she was okay with one day, but then raged at me when I tried it again the next day, so I will keep on swaddling her for a bit longer.

Development – Rayah has mastered sitting on her own, which has also made life much easier!  It’s so great to be able to sit her down with some toys around her and have her sit and play contentedly.  I love watching her play with her toys and discover new things! 

 

She has also laughed a couple times with a new chuckle at something Justice has done that she thought was funny.  She tends to be more serious than Justice and it takes more to get her to laugh, so I’m always trying to pay attention to what she finds amusing – mostly she just likes getting tickled!   She likes to clap her feet together and can stand on her own for a short time while holding onto a couch. 

She has played strange with a few more people, but not everybody, so I’m not sure why she picks certain people that she doesn’t like.  She is definitely a mama’s girl and hates it when I leave her sight and will wail and cry – sigh – this is something I never really had to deal with with Justice, since he always loved all people.   Lastly, in addition to gurgling and blowing spit bubbles, she has a vast vocabulary consisting of “dada, yaya, gaga”!

Other – We had our dedication service for Rayah where we took time to dedicate her to the Lord and have friends and family bless and pray over her, for her future and destiny, and for us as her parents, that He would give us everything we need to raise her well, for His glory!