The Frueh Family: Molly Joy is 8 Months Old!

Incredibly, Molly is 8 months old today. I always found parents a bit kooky who said things like, "I can't believe how fast it's gone. It seems like yesterday, they were little babies." I always thought, "A month's a month and a year's a year. What's the big deal?" Now I'M one of those parents. The months since Molly joined our family seem to have flown by. I have several family members and friends who've been blessed with brand-new little babies in the last few weeks and, when I look at their wee little ones, it really does feel like yesterday that Molly was an 8 lb. little lump of cuteness. And now she's a movin' and groovin' 8-month old, full of personality and growing more independent every day.

So, what's new with Molly at 8 months old?

Molly keeps a very consistent schedule, which she would prefer you not disrupt. Unfortunately, we were forced to disrupt her nap schedule last week when we had workmen in our house putting in hardwood floors. An un-napped Molly is an unhappy Molly. Not even her swing could cheer her up. Snuggles in her sling helped a little. We learned our lesson the first day; the next day Molly napped across the street at the neighbor's house.

She desperately wants to crawl and gets very frustrated with the fact that she just doesn't quite get it yet. She can push up on her hands, but rather than going up on her knees, she pushes up on her feet (kind of a sloppy downward-facing-dog, for my fellow yoga fans). From this position, she's pretty much stuck. When she get's tired enough, she flops down on her belly and flails like a fish out of water. I feel frustrated for her, but I know it'll click for her one day soon.

Despite her frustrations with crawling, Molly's becoming very good at standing. She can stand next to the couch or her exersaucer for quite a while if we stand her up. Just once, we saw her pull herself up to stand in the nursery playpen at church and it was only for a second, but that was enough to convince us it was time to lower the crib mattress, yet again.

She LOVES to swing in her swing that Daddy hung in the tree out front. As soon as we pull up the swing to give her a push, she opens her mouth wide in a HUGE smile that stays plastered to her face until the swinging stops. The poor girl is going to swallow a bug someday soon if she doesn't learn to enjoy the swinging with her mouth shut!

She's obsessed with computer screens. It's almost impossible to work on the computer while Molly is awake because she wants to be in your lap with her face on the screen and her hands all over the keyboard. She actually changed the settings of Internet Explorer on my laptop with a few "key strokes" (read: banging on the keyboard) and I still haven't figured out how to change it back.

Molly's favorite toy is her feet. Regardless of where she is...changing table, crib, high chair, stroller...the first thing she grabs to play with is her feet. She was never big on the pacifier and she sucked her thumb for a while, but gave that up a few months ago. However, those toes are her absolute favorite thing in the world. Luckily, they're never far from reach.

Another one of Molly's favorite play items is her toy basket. Forget all the actual toys stored in the basket. Clearly, they're too boring! The first thing Molly does when it's placed in front of her is to dump the contents of the basket and then use it as either a hat or a drum.

As you can tell from Molly's Menu, she has tried lots of new foods recently and seems to like all of them. The only one she still gives us a hard time with on occasion is sweet potato. She eats it; she just doesn't gobble it down like she does everything else. I'd say her favorites are probably asparagus, avocado, and a combo of oatmeal and pears. You can always tell when she's starting to get full because she starts to "play" with her food: she'll blow bubbles on the spoon, spraying food in all directions, or she'll take a mouthful and then squeeze it back out through her lips, giving herself a lovely goatee. She recently tried mango for the first time after getting one from the "Easter bunny". She definitely had a good time trying to pick up the slippery mango pit to gnaw on.