Zayda: 8 Months!

Eight months!

She's grows a little more into a little person every day, which is both awesome and a tiny bit sad all mixed up together.

She loves food. Pretty much any food, and if there is no food around she'll gladly try dirt or rocks or leaves or whatever she can get her hands on. (None of the other kids were every so obsessed with putting everything in their mouths!) 

I'm continually impressed how well she does with nearly any food she tries. How the heck do you eat frybread without any teeth?
Though food is exciting, moving around less so. She's still content pretty much wherever you put her.  She doesn't even seem real aware that she might want to leave and go off exploring. I guess why would you when you always have so much going on right in front of you or have any number of people to nearby to pick you up and take you wherever you want to go?

To help with this plan to get everyone else to take her where she wants to go,  she learned how to wave. She seems quite proud of her skill and uses it to let people know she is leaving or that she is clearly ready to go somewhere new. She'll also babble "bye-bye-bye-bye-bye" to accompany the waving if she's really trying to make a point. This version of bye-bye is probably sort of her first word (in the unclear-to-most-of-the-world, though clearly a sound-with-meaning-attached-for-the-baby phase of language progression). 

Of course a few weeks ago she took to saying "Bob" clearly,  so we named the fuzzy cat Bob and we pretend she is super smart to already be calling our pets by name.

She's given up showers for baths because she loves to play in the water. (And is still less worried about water all over her face than a shirt covering it up in the time it takes to get dressed.)

The only sad thing about all this new awareness of the world around her is she knows strangers now, and is even a bit worried about people who aren't strangers but who she doesn't spend all day with.

That too is probably good. She still has a huge circle of people who like to hang out with her, it's probably okay if it takes the next few months to sort out, recognize, and remember all those friendly faces.