I cannot believe it! I know I say this every month, but I just...can't. It amazes me how fast time has gone, how big she is getting. I have a slideshow of pictures as my screen saver, and there's one of her in a sleep sack when she was about 1 month old. I had to roll the sleeves twice to make it fit her little arms. She still wears that sleep sack, and although comfy, she will soon outgrow it. So many times each day I look at her, smell her sweet baby head and kiss her sweet smooshy cheeks and think about how much I love her. Daily I think about how I cannot wait until she walks, about how much fun she will have next year when we visit the zoo or how she'll enjoy different foods, etc., and yet I cherish these moments when she's so small and I can snuggle her up to me.
Zooey now has eight teeth! Her top two middle teeth came through last week. Maybe we'll have a break for awhile?? I've read that if babies teeth early they'll usually get their molars by the time they turn one or shortly after, so the next few months might just bring more teething fun. And, yes, I'm still nursing. Yes, she's bitten a couple of times, but she listens pretty well when I tell her no firmly and won't bite again until the next teeth come in and her mouth hurts. She's getting so close to sitting on her own. We practice several times a day, and she will sit for a couple of seconds then fall over on us. I think she gets frustrated that she can't sit for longer or move around where she wants to go. During her independent play time, she sits in her bumbo chair in her play pen where she takes all her toys out of a basket then throws them down. Sometimes she can't quite bend over far enough to pull out one of her balls, and she gets so frustrated! She'll end up turning herself and getting her leg stuck, so we have to go fix her. It's cute, but I think she'll be happy once she can just sit in there and get what she wants. She also seems really close to rolling from back to front. Ryan & I have to wonder if she doesn't just make the move because she hates being on her tummy so much! She'll flip onto her side but she goes no further. She will make it soon enough. In the past few weeks, Zooey's fallen even more in love with her jumparoo. Her feet really touch, and she just goes crazy jumping up and down and squealing with delight. She also loves books. I open the pages, and she laughs and kicks her legs. She is really starting to look at the pictures and "talks" to them, too. My sweet little girl is in a sleep sack for all her naps now, and she seems to be slowly moving herself to a 4 hour routine; she's done it about three times in the last couple weeks. I've decided not to push her too much, but now that I know she can do it, it gives us a little more freedom to run errands or something without as much worry about getting her down for a nap. The girl loves to sleep, though! It wasn't until I kind of accidentally figured out her waketime can be longer by keeping her up when I was out that I noticed she could do it. She'll go down after about an hour and ten minutes and sleep for a good 2 hours for each nap. She's like her daddy - he likes his sleep, too. :) I'm still making her baby food, and she's tried so many things that she loves. One thing I love about making her food is that there's a lot more variety than the store bought baby food. Her new favorite thing is watermelon. We put it in a fresh food feeder for her, and she sucks all the juice and melon out then begs for more. It's very cute! Zooey has begun to enjoy my runs a little more. She doesn't just immediately conk out and go to sleep anymore; she will stay up longer and look around or look back at me. When Ryan goes on a walk with us, she'll pretty much stare at him the entire time. She loves him so much. He walks into a room, and she smiles, laughs and reaches for him. She gets pretty excited about her grandma & grandpa and Aunt RaRa and Uncle Rey, too. Even more exciting than us boring people though, are the cats. Our cats, Sarah's cats, Grandma's cats, Zooey loves them all. She's started to reach for them, and sometimes in the morning, it's just the motivation she needs to sit up when she sees Snowball. I could go on and on, but these are the highlights that really stand out to me from the last month. She's just so precious.
I feel so blessed to have Zooey and to be a mom. I pray daily that Ryan & I will be a good example to her in all that we do. It's just such a privilege to care for her. God knew what He was doing when He gave parents this amazing, fragile, helpless little baby to help raise into adulthood; the bond we've formed with her even now is so strong, and we want nothing but the best for her. I can't wait to see what each day of every month to come holds.
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