4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

This post was originally called milestones. I started it in October when Avery turned 6-months old. I've been meaning to post this since then! Six months became 7months and then 7 became 8. So, here I am FINALLY posting this! Because there are so many pictures, I'm just throwing them all in at the end - they start from back in July when she was 3 1/2 months old until her bath in the sink at the beginning of December.

Anyway, Avery is 8 months old and SUCH a cutie. I haven't had my camera that takes movies since August, so I don't have any movies of Avery for the past 4 months. It is really unfortunate because she has been SO animated these last few months. I just got my camera back a couple of weeks ago and I shot the movie that I posted after the pictures. SO cute.

So, what are the milestones?! There have been so many! Avery has 2 teeth now, on the bottom. They came at about 6 months old and they are still her only 2 teeth. She started sitting up on her own at about 7 months. She can't crawl yet, but that is fine by us! In fact, it's harder now that she is sitting because she doesn't always want to be in the exersaucer or the jolly jumper. I think it's safer for her to be in either of those two because it's a layer of "protection" from Josh. When she's sitting on the floor by herself and Josh is running around, leaving bite-sized toys everywhere, I feel like Avery is so vulnerable to the "elements"!

Avery's first word was, you guessed it(!), "Mama"! However, she only says it when she is distressed in that very crying, whiny tone..."Ma ma ma ma ma...". She started that at about 7 months, too. I've been trying to teach her "mama", "dada" and "baba". Just a couple of weeks ago, she started to say "baba". Now, in addition to her squeals, she goes around saying "mama" and "baba" all the time.

I thought that because Avery was such a talker, she would be quite calm in the movement department. NOT! I guess we're just one of those rare, "lucky" parents who just have active children. Avery cannot sit still. She will not just sit on my lap. She likes to be standing on laps or, if we're standing and carrying her, she is constantly turning her body and leaning all over the place. She's just fidgety girl. Have you met her brother?!

Speaking of brother, Josh and Avery are great together. I'm having lots of fun watching the 2 of them these days. Josh always includes Avery in everything and he always wants to comfort her when she cries. She LOVES to watch him play and I think she gets some comfort out of him just being around. It's great to watch him try to make her laugh and hear her giggle because of him.

Josh also has his moments around Avery, too. He bit her couple of times. The first time, I think it was because he was going to put his finger in her mouth and I told him not to because she already had teeth and it would hurt. So, I think he decided to pre-empt her strike with one of his own!

Josh can also be quite rough with Avery, so she'll have to be a tough girl just to survive him! We are constantly having to remind him to be gentle with her but he soon forgets our warnings.

He also takes toys away from her all the time. I think he does that because he can! I'll be interested to see how things evolve once Avery is able to crawl and walk and stick up for herself. I'm sure she'll be taking his toys much more often and she'll able to voice her discontent with him. Ahhh, the joys of sibling rivalry...