Eight Months of Awesome

Lucy started "saying" mama this morning. Many times. On video and for her Daga at lunch (proof and a witness). I am not sure if she is relating this to me or not, but a little tear trickled down my face when I was sure that mama was coming out of her little mouth in the sweetest, softest most beautiful voice I have ever heard. Be still my little heart.

At 8 months old she is learning and doing a gillion new things. Of course this is obvious to us, as we assume everything she accomplishes is super advanced. Most recently we have noticed that she is holding an object in both hands now. She seems pretty excited that there are two different items for eating at the same time. As soon as she started crawling she woke up and decided she is ready to stand, which makes one out of three members of our family ready for this step. She is pushing up on our legs, on chairs, on blocks, on boxes..anything she can get her hands on. We are attempting to teach her to slide backwards off of furniture and our bed so that she can land on her feet and she gets a pretty big kick out of her feet hitting the floor. Oh, the little things in life :-). No teeth yet and a happy nursing mama for the late arrival of impending boobie slicers. She is crushing solid foods and the list of foods she has tried/liked is so long that even her teachers are impressed with her. Like I said, advanced baby. 

Speaking of her teachers, Little Miss starts "school" on Monday. She has her own little cubby, diaper cabinet and space in the pantry. We have been doing short visits together this week (after I begged and pleaded and weaseled my way in the room). Her teachers seem lovely thus far and happy to have attempt a smooth transition. Lucy seems content there and looks to me for reassurance often while we visit with her new classmates. She adapts to new environments fairly quickly so I have no doubt that she will do well at school, too. I just wish she didn't have be there for so many hours a day. I am feeling good, not good, terrible, wait...really great...and not so great about starting my program all at the same time. She definitely needs more than just me in her day, but I would also shove her back in my uterus and take her to class with me if I could stand to miss out on her smile and her little "mamas."  Since I can't, I am going to frequent her classroom and provide as many opportunities for nursies as possible. I am sure she won't mind and her teachers encourage it.  So far I don't have class on Mondays or Fridays, so I am hoping to keep those days short for her and get a ton of work accomplished while she is at the childcare center. Then when I pick her up we can just play, play, nurse, eat, play, nurse and nurse. 

Jim doesn't say many sweet things. I mean, he is darling and I love him so deeply I can hardly stand it sometimes, but I didn't marry him because he is Mr. Romantic. He did say to me this week when I was having one of MANY moments of doubt that me going back to school for a PhD is a game changer for Lucy. She will get to have a mommy who has her own thing going on in addition to being enthralled with her daughter and that it is so important for her to have me as her role model in that way. He also sees the value in being a full-time mom, but this is the path we have chosen as a family and I do believe it will beneficial to all of us. If it is not, we will regroup, reassess and make new decisions.