Juno Elizabeth is 8 months old! I love this stage Juno is in right now so much and wouldn’t trade it for anything, even with the severe separation anxiety and all the worries that come with having an 8 month old (I know I’ll be saying that at every stage!)
I’m not completely sure how much June Bug weighs but a couple of weeks ago at the doctor she was 14 lbs 5 oz and 24 inches tall. I just cleaned out her dresser and decided to put all of her 3 months clothes away despite most of them still fitting her. I pulled out all of the 3-6 months and 6 month clothes and she’s wearing those now … they are bright and summery and fun and she has plenty of room to grow into them! Thanks big cousin Ellie! We sure do love hand me downs and not having to buy anything! Juno’s teeny tiny feet are wearing size 0-3 month shoes (on the rare occasion that we actually put shoes on her). YaYa bought her some darling 3-6 month jellies but they are HUGE on her still. Maybe this fall she can wear them? She is also still in size 2 diapers, but we are about ready to start wearing size 3 at least at night pretty soon!
We just got back from another camping trip in Grand Lake and we had so much fun. Juno got to splash in the freezing cold water (she LOVES the water), go on a boat ride for her second time, saw a black bear and a mama and baby moose duo and got her first teeny tiny sunburn on her little cheeks despite a sun hat and lots of sunscreen. I tried my best but the sun won on our day on the boat. It didn’t last for long though! We came back from camping with full hearts and oh so tired because Juno’s sleep while camping was not so good this time around. Someone remembered what it was like to nurse all night. Bad habits in the making … yet again!
Speaking of sleep, I think we are in a bit of a regression right now. Last month I had wrote about how we had done some official sleep training and our nights were going so good. While I still had to get up to nurse her in the night, I was often waking her up to do this instead of the other way around. Now Juno has been having a couple to a handful of wake ups each night. Her longest stretch lately has been back to around 4 hours (sometimes shorter but sometimes a bit longer on a good night). Right when you think you are getting the hang of one thing, something else comes up, right? It’s always something! Her napping is still pretty much non-existent unless I’m holding her or she’s in her wrap or car seat. Every so often she’ll sleep anywhere from 20-45 minutes either in her crib if we are home or in the dockatot but those times are still few and far between. You should see how much I can get done in 20 minutes though — it’s truly unbelievable! I know part of her sleep right now is my lack of consistency — for some reason hearing her wail is breaking my heart right now when I was SO strong with letting her cry it out a couple of months ago. She’s also started rolling over onto her belly while sleeping this month and 98% of the time this wakes her right up and she will not lay her head back down once she’s awake and on her tummy. We are hoping she’ll learn to like sleeping on her tummy sometime soon! Occasionally when I check the monitor and she’s sound asleep on her belly so I am hopeful!
Juno’s still exploring and eating solid foods, although I wish she could just have milk forever and not have to eat real food. Sometimes she’s interested in eating, other times not so much. I was hoping to do more baby-led weaning, but I’m following Junos lead and she much prefers a good ol’ Purée. Every time she’s tried to have any sort of finger food, she ends up majorly gagging and throwing up everything that is in her little tummy and then she has no interest in trying again, so for now, we are sticking with baby food. She likes to feed herself with the spoon and make a gigantic mess every time she eats. She now has to eat naked because by the end of every meal she is covered from head to toe with baby food. You should see our floor and the walls in the breakfast nook. Ha ha! While Juno is having fun playing with her food, I am a nervous wreck. This mama never knew that starting solids and trying new foods could be so hard and worrisome! Juno has had some reactions to some of the foods she’s tried so now every time we give her something new, I turn into a anxious basket case. We saw the allergist a few weeks ago to rule out a peanut allergy and now we have to go back to the allergist because we are certain she is allergic to avocados. On three separate occasions, Juno has thrown up BIG TIME a few hours after having avocado. The first two times were in her crib after she had gone to bed and it wasn’t until the third time when she had avocado for lunch and a few hours later started projectile vomiting that we realized on all three occasions she had avocados a few hours beforehand. The first time she never made a peep so I went in to give her a dream feed before I went to bed and she was caked in throw up. Cue all the mama anxiety. The second time she at least cried but I still didn’t know why she was all of the sudden throwing up in her crib and then the third time since it happened during the day I finally realized it was something she was eating. I’m now terrified of giving Juno any new foods. Can’t she just eat the same 5 purées for the rest of her life that I know are safe?
Juno has gotten lots of cousin time this month! I started watching my sweet nephew, Micah, two days a week so Juno and him are having so much fun together. They are learning how to share toys and not grab each other’s faces. He’s three months older than Juno and Juno is learning so much from him! She’s also gotten to play with big cousin, Ellie, and twin cousin, Raleigh, quite a bit too! It’s the best having built in best friends, am I right?
Juno still has zero teeth despite all the drool. She continues to chew on everything and she loves to play with her toys. She will sit up and play for a long time, but her favorite is standing up and walking with our help. She loves to walk around the house all day long. She is rolling around like crazy still and will scoot backwards but hasn’t quite figured out how to move forward and she isn’t crawling yet. She can almost pull herself up to standing by herself! She loves to stand and hold on to things and thinks she is oh so big when she does this.
New within the last week is that Juno says “da da da”. Not sure she knows that she’s saying “Dada” when she does this but Brandon sure does like to think so and he likes to rub it in that she said Dada before Mama. We’ve got to start working on those mmmm sounds I guess!
Even though she says Dada now, she’s still a mamas girls through and through. The separation anxiety has peaked and she now screams and screams if she knows I am home and pass her off to Brandon or leave the room. She doesn’t want anyone to watch her except her Yaya. I left her with her Auntie KK a couple of weeks ago for just over an hour in which she screamed bloody murder the whole time (bless her heart, watching 3 babies one who of which was screaming, one who wanted to be held but couldn’t, and one who plugged her ears the whole time). If you ask Ellie now, “What does Baby Juno say?”, she replies, “Wahhh wahhhhh!” Ha ha! Juno is just a bit stubborn and doesn’t give in easily. I wonder where she gets that from?!
Her favorite things this month include going on walks, sitting in the grass and playing with leaves, her dog Remington and walking all around with our help.
I simply cannot believe our baby girl is 8 months old. I’m not sure where the time has gone. I’m excited to soak up another month, but cannot believe that our sweet little nugget is 8 months old. Time, please slow down!
