Eight Months

Anjali Sage Pope is over eight months old.  Wow!  What a month it has been!  So many visits, and so many visitors.  It was a lot of fun, and now the house feels very quiet.   

Anjali has been coming into some dynamic and fun developments lately.  The most dramatic is her pulling to stand, and "cruising" ~ side-stepping with her feet as she holds onto objects (or hands or legs) with one or both hands.  It started with her standing and holding onto my hand as I sat on the couch in the living room.  Then she would turn her head, let go of her outer hand and reach toward the basket-trunk that we use as a coffee table.  Then she lurched over to rest her weight on that leg and grab the basket!  Back and forth, and repeat.  After that she set out to make any table leg, couch, pant leg, a hand-hold with which to practice her standing and stepping.  It is so exciting and suspenseful that I think I hold my breath with her as she makes that reach and grab!  As with every new skill, Anjali seems obsessed with pulling up to stand.  She even must stand while she nurses!  Ha ha!  Of course standing up involves the risk of misstep, and mainly the risk of getting so absorbed in investigating an object that she loses her balance and topples ~ sideways, backwards..   On our hardwood and tile floors ~ ouch!  So that telltale "thud" noise is followed by crying.  It's hard being a baby.

Anjali has coordinated her hands and legs in the official crawling motion.  She has exhibited it on many occasions at this point, but still prefers her inch-worm method when she really wants to get somewhere fast.   I blame our hard flooring for this choice ~ pulling your torso by doing push-ups is much easier on the knees than crawling!  But we'll keep working on the crawling.   

With pulling up, kneeling is a new favorite position for Anjali to inspect and play with things.  This offers a much higher view, while still offering stability.  So, as you saw earlier, horticulture has once again become an engaging pastime, from a whole new vantage point.  
(And those plants on the shelf have been replaced with wooden bowls. . )

A fun bit of interaction that several of us have encountered is a curious gesture of "sharing" on Anjali's part.  One evening I was holding her in the carrier on my chest as I did things around the kitchen.  She had a wooden stick that she was gnawing on.  Playing, I mimicked her biting, making exaggerated movements with my mouth.  She smiled in amusement, chewed a few chomps, and then held the stick to my mouth.  I pretended to chew a few, then she pulled it back to her mouth, chomped, and then offered it to me again!  On the inside, I was laughing so hard.  

Anjali's vocabulary of sounds is growing and changing.  Lately, while she is playing, she whispers to herself ~ with lots of f's and p's and sh's and ch's.  I am always so enchanted by it, I never remember to record her in the act.  And when she talks out loud, recently she has been saying things like, "doidle oidle oidle," "eedle eedle eedle," and "dody ody ody ody."  Papi and I can't help but sing along.  

Speaking of singing, I am pretty sure Anjali is dancing to music.  When she's in the carrier, several times when she has heard music with a strong rhythm ~ like Zap Mama in the kitchen yesterday, and a trio of musicians at the farmers' market today, she kind of moves up and down like she's riding a horse.  I think she might be singing sometimes, too, with a loud "aaaa!!" as she bops up and down. 

And the last fun development I'll report is that Anjali is really excited to recognize people in photos.  She lights up and makes the same high-pitched cooing noise as she does when she's saying hi to a cat or another baby.  The other day she was playing in the pile of magazines and papers we leave for her on the lowest shelf next to the dining area of our living room.  I wasn't watching, but I heard her make that cooing noise.  So I walked over to see what she was focusing on ~ she had found a baby photo of me (that had accidentally gotten stashed) in that pile.  (-:

In teething news, Anjali has had one day of elevated temperature, and a couple others where we could tell she didn't feel quite her best.  One tooth is showing prominently.  

Happy eight months, indeed, Anjali!!

More to come ~ including stories, June's photo gallery, and video!