8 Months

Delma is 8 months old. Actually, since I am so late in posting as usual, she is about 8 and a half months. Crazy. She had been really healthy, then caught some little tummy bug last weekend and was running a fever for a day or 2. It was very weird, even when she's been sick before she rarely really seems sick. But this time, all day on Monday she was totally mopey, lethargic, a bump on a log. So not like her usual peppy kooky self. It sort of freaked me out, she would let me cuddle and hug her, whereas normally she's too interested inpulling and pushing me and grabbing and squirming to ever let me just have some nice quiet cuddle time with her. I had just been complaining days before that she never lets me mush and cuddle, and then she got sick and did let me, but I would have traded her back for her annoyingly squirmy healthy self in a second.

She's all better now, though, and is donning fun little summer clothes now that we're having some warm days. LOVE the summer baby, with the exposed flesh and the sweaty little head.

Del still isn't crawling, but she sometimes seems like she almost might be making some progress. She does on occasion get on her knees and rock, but it seems more accidental than anything. She's happy to push herself around backwards on her belly, though, and she scooted herself right into the kitchen the other day and found the cat food. Oops. Time to baby-proof. She mostly likes holding someones hands and pulling herself up, but now she likes plopping back down on her tush too. She used to cry any time she plopped down, but now she does it on purpose. She'll do it over and over and over and over. We call it "Up and Oop!" Good times.

A few weeks ago we went to a birthday party for our niece Aria, who turned 5. My sister-in-law is one of 4 kids, and they each have kids around the same age and all live near each other and the little cousins all spend tons of time together. With the exception of the youngest, my nephew Elijah, they're all girls, and they're all tight. They were so excited to see Baby Delma, they practically descended on her like lions on prey, though in a very loving way instead of an I'm-gonna-chew-you sort of way. Alexandria put a little tiara on her. Del was overwhelmed but fascinated. We just kept our distance and let her get sucked into their world, my SIL's mother was holding her most of the time. It was very cute to sit back and see it all play out, see our baby trying to make sense of this completely foreign world. Josh and I have problems with my SIL, and her family is rather overbearing and they're definitely a tight pack, but I want Delma to know her cousins and have the experience of extended family. It's hard, it means that we have to make a real effort to see them and spend time with them, but it will be worth it for Delma's sake.

Up until recently, Del had this strange thing where she'd get very upset when we'd play with blocks and a tower of them would crash down. I would make little towers and she'd watch me, and then I'd knock them down or she'd try to grab the top one and accidentally knock them all down, and it would really freak her out. I don't know why. But now all of a sudden, she's fine with it and has also started doing this cute thing sometimes where every block that I put down she'll grab and put in a little hoarded stash in front of her. Very cute. I put it down, she grabs it. If I want to make a tower I have to do it very fast because she'll grab as fast as I can stack. Of course she won't do it if there are witnesses... I wanted to show Josh how cute it is, and she doesn't do it if he's there. She's like that singing frog from the cartoon.