8 month update

This month has just flown by! We have continued to have some problems with sleeping, some of which seemed to be due to something she was eating. So we cut back all her food and have slowly re-introduced each type of food...so far, so good! As a result, though, poor Amanda is still only getting a few types of food. Within a few more days we will have re-introduced everything (rice, oatmeal, bananas, peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, and chicken), and can start with some new foods - we hope to try Cheerios, since she is just starting to get into finger foods, and then maybe some teething biscuits and more fruits and veggies. Speaking of teething, still nothing...we think Amanda may be the first five year old without any teeth! Just kidding...mom is actually happy to have avoided dealing with the biting issue thus far. Mandy is very close to crawling; she lunges forward from a sitting position and rocks back and forth from her bum to her knees. The only problem she has is that she gets one leg stuck under her (still in the sitting position)... once she figures out how to move that leg, we anticipate that she'll be off to the races! (Something else we are a bit ambivalent about...it sure has been nice to have a less-than-mobile baby!). For the time being she manages to move, albeit slowly, by scooting on her rear end and squirming on her tummy. She is vocalizing a lot and has started to call us "mamamamama" and "dadadadada", although it's not perfect yet (she uses both for both of us). We also get a lot of ba, la, bla, and ga sounds, and the occasional ka. We have finished our swimming lessons - some classes were better than others, but it seems that her general lack of sleep these days makes her a bit grouchy in the pool (and sometimes out of the pool too!). Our new mom & baby group is going very well...those Friday afternoons are a life- saver! We have also started to see the very first signs that she is signing back to us, although it's still a bit sketchy...she makes something approximating the "milk" sign when she is getting hungry. Hopefully we will see more signs in the weeks to come.