Air Force Wife Life: 8 Months

This has been a big month for Miss Lena Rose. The beginning of the month seemed uneventful. The last week she started crawling, signing "milk", babbling A LOT, and finally got her first tooth! These things, plus her recent illness (a nasty upper respiratory infection) has caused even less sleep than usual, but it's a small price to pay for all these amazing milestones.

Excluding this week, in which we have more or less thrown routine out the window to get well, Lena has been doing really well with her naps and maximizing her playtime. She plays very well independently, but it's obvious that she prefers playtime with her big sister. Who wouldn't? She can be incredibly entertaining.

Lena is eating solid meals 2-3 times a day. Usually we do some kind of baby led weaning breakfast meal (Like splitting frozen waffles with her sister), for lunch she has a puree vegetable serving with some sort of table food snack, and for dinner we make sure to stuff her full of a protein/iron rich puree meal. Baby led weaning is great but we definitely prefer a mix of table food and purees. Purees are MUCH easier for traveling or for dinner when you want to be sure she fills her belly for the night. That being said, Lena still hasn't dropped a single nursing session. She nurses about every 2-3 hours around the clock. We feel her 7th month was definitely a growth spurt. She's gained quite a bit of weight back that she had lost from growing length wise and having mono in November/December.

Sleep still hasn't improved. It's hard. By far the hardest part of parenting for me. Being sleep deprived like this for months really takes a toll on me. I read an article about the effects of sleep deprivation the other day. It listed 5 major ways it affects your body/mind. I have and am experiencing them all today. A lot of the time, it's all I can think about. I truly hate this, but it makes me bitter and resentful at almost anyone else who is getting sleep. Anytime I hear anyone complain about anything, my sleepy brain is thinking "shut up....at least you got to sleep 8+ hours last night". Coffee is my best friend first thing in the morning. It doesn't really solve my problem, but it does make it to where I don't feel the need to simply recover from the night before all day long. Staying home all day with a 3 year old and an 8 month old means I don't get naps. I went through the same thing with Elise at this age. For awhile, I used to not even try to go to bed myself. As soon as I would start to get sleepy, baby would be awake again. When my husband was gone and no one could help me with Elise at night, I used to just cry every night. Wondering what I could do to fix it and how long could I last like this? I feel a little less hopeless this time around. I know that there's absolutely no guarantee that Lena will start sleeping like Elise did. But I know I can at least survive 12 months of this. As miserable as it is. At least this time, my husband is here and while he cannot nurse Lena all hours of the night, he can give me breaks on the weekend. Every Saturday, I get to sleep an extra two hours while he gets up and takes care of both girls, and usually does a pesky chore I haven't had the energy to tackle and I wake up to fresh coffee. That man is a godsend. He's pretty amazing at knowing how to support me through this tough time and keeping my attitude positive. Just hearing him express gratitude for me taking care of our babies and not giving up on breastfeeding, despite the potential release that might bring me, is a pretty great feeling.

So Lena is mobile! She is definitely going forward but it's a funny way of doing it. She gets on all fours and her legs thrust her upper body forward and instead of moving her arms to catch herself and remain up, she just kinda falls forward. Then she gets back up and does it over and over until she gets to where she wants. It won't be long before she figures out how to alternate her arms to stay up and crawl more efficiently. She will be following her sister and her new puppy all over the house very soon. We cannot wait.

My husband is now in unexplored territory. He has never been around a 8-14 month old. So Lena's crawling, babbling and blossoming personality is all very new to him. I can tell it's a little bittersweet, but I think he mostly loves getting to see all of it this time around. I'm so glad he will get to experience all of these firsts with one of our children, since we aren't really planning on having any more.

We are less than 4 months away from Lena's first birthday. Less than 4 months until we have two walking, talking toddlers in our home. As much as we love snuggling and loving on a cute pudgy baby, I know we are both really looking forward to Lena being in the awesome 12-20 months stage of life that we loved SO much with Elise. So many wonderful things to look forward to....together!