8 Months

Elliot Claire is 8 months old! 

Okay, this is officially my favorite age. She's active, curious, and so much fun! She's suddenly super detail oriented -- fixating on jewelry, zippers, cabinet knobs, crumbs on the carpet, the sock fuzz between her toes -- all that good stuff. Here are some more updates on our little E-Claire:

• She now bathes in the big girl tub! And she loves it. She scoots her little bum all around the slippery tub to grab toys and investigate the perimeter. She also loves to dunk her face and drink the bath water. Yuck.

• Miss E is working hard on crawling. She's not quite there yet, but she can now easily get into the position and rock back and forth a little. She's gone for it a couple of times but since those attempts resulted in a skinned nose, I think she's decided to take her time. 

• The inability to crawl hasn't stopped her though! She might even skip crawling all together and go straight to walking because guess what...Ellie stood up all by herself a couple of weeks ago! And now that is all she wants to do. She'll climb over anything and anyone to get into a standing position.

• Her "vocabulary" has increased even more this past month! Ellie now knows how to say/copy "yaaaay," and my personal favorite, "mum."

• Elliot's new favorite toys are blocks. We can barely construct a tower more than a few blocks high before she lunges and knocks the whole thing over.

• She now holds her arms up in the air when she wants to be held. Cutest thing ever.

• This past month Ellie has become super affectionate, which I love. Pretty much anytime we are sitting close to each other, she'll scoot up next to me and climb/crawl on top of me until I'm holding her. She also gave me a kiss for the very first time! It was a big, wet, open mouthed suction right on my cheek! It was oh-so sweet :) She's given kisses to Daddy and Grandma Purcell as well.

• Ellie still has the best sense of humor. We invent games all the time together. Recently, I was sitting next to her crib on the floor and she thought it was hilarious to suddenly pull down the bumper, squeal loudly, and surprise me. Peek-a-boo bumper is now one of our favorites.

• Ellie now waves bye-bye! Well, mostly she just sticks her little fist in the air and holds it there. So I guess it's not technically "waving" but she gets the idea :)

• This baby girl loves to sing! She is extremely musically inclined. She coos, hums, and jabbers along to the hymns at church as well as lullabies and music from the radio.

• Our sweet girl got her very first tooth (bottom center)! FINALLY! The past couple of months have taught me that Ellie does not handle teething well. Poor kid. But that sucker has finally broken through! It's hard to see, but you can definitely feel it! And man, does this kid like to bite! Ouch! But she soon found out biting crackers is way more tasty than Mommy and Daddy fingers. 

• Speaking of eating...she is officially done with baby food. This kid only wants real food that she has to chew. She's gotten really good at picking up tasty morsels and shoving them in her mouth.

This is what we did with the last couple of jars that she wouldn't finish. Edible finger paint!

• Elliot is finally starting to resemble ME! Hooray!! She still looks like a mini Christian but I'm finally recognizing bits of me in there as well -- mostly in her personality and mannerisms. There are two main things she does that are exactly what I did at her age. 1) She is obsessed with her tongue. She is constantly clicking it and sticking it in and out of her mouth. 2) Ellie "whispers" now instead of "talking." Whisper, whisper all day long! Just like Mommy used to.

• Ellie had her first non-family babysitter last week! I was a little apprehensive at first, but she took to the sitter right away (Brittany was wearing a necklace) and Ellie didn't even look up when Christian and I walked out the door. What a champ!

• Here's something random...Ellie is scared of glasses. Well, let me rephrase that. Ellie is scared when Mommy wears glasses. I found my old glasses the other day so I put them on to show Christian, and Ellie freaked. Like sobbing and screaming. I look them off to show her it was still me and she stared me down, wide eyed. As soon as I put them back on, she burst into tears again! We tried it with Daddy, Uncle Michael, and Grandma Purcell -- no reaction. They all have permission to wear glasses but not Mommy! I've tried it a couple of times since, and she still cries. Weird. 

And now...PICTURE TIMELINE TIME!