Our sweet Martha is 8 months old, 2/3rds of the way to 1!!
Can someone please tell me how this happened so fast?!?
Thinking about my babies growing up makes me feel like this:
Just kidding. I mean, there is a bittersweetness to them growing and changing so much, but every new stage brings such joy too! Watching this little girl grow is truly amazing, especially as we see her growing into her own little person… not really a Noa 2.0 like we thought 
. Don’t get me wrong, this girl LOVES her big sister. No one can make her giggle, smile, or keep her attention quite like Noa can. They love to cuddle! Check out the sweetness:
But Martha is her own little person, doing things her own little way. The biggest difference between our girls at this age is that Martha is mobile, while Noa was not. Yikes! It is stressful trying to keep up with an 8-month mover! She is all over the place, getting into everything, and she doesn’t understand “No” yet. By the time Noa crawled (at 11 months), she had a pretty good grasp on how to obey me when I told her what she could or couldn’t do, where she could or couldn’t go. Plus, Noa was just happy to sit and play with whatever I gave her. Not Miss Martha! She is into everything, tasting it, throwing it off and looking for something else… like a live wire or a fallen coin or the dog’s tail. It’s definitely made my job harder, but I love it about her too. She’s an adventurer at heart and I know that will be an amazing attribute to her… I just hope she can survive her first year! Oh, and she not a traditional crawler. It’s like she’s in stealth mode and trying to sneak, like army crawling. It looks like it is such an ordeal, but she sure gets around. I will try to post a video, once I can figure out how to on this new site.
Martha has done great with solid food. She is eating 2 meals a day, along with 2 snacks of rice crackers and cheerios. She also drinks water from a sippy cup (another thing Noa couldn’t do at her age). When we started her on veggies, I wasn’t good about tracking what she was eating for the first time so I was clueless when she developed an awful diaper rash. After 2 weeks of cutting things out of her diet and starting again, and even going to the doctor for it, I now believe it was caused by sweet potatoes. So sad, because sweet potatoes are one of the best fall/winter food here. I hope she’s not allergic forever…
Anyway, so we will be adding back carrots and avocados and apples to her diet and then moving onto other yummyness, like pumpkin and peas and greenbeans and tofu.
I know you already saw this, but she was just such a cute lady bug, I had to get one more picture on here:
She only wore that headband for 3.8 seconds but it was pretty cute while it lasted.
Martha’s sleeping habits have improved. She is now consistently sleeping past 6am, usually til around 7, which is a drastic improvement from her post-jet lag crazies. She takes two great naps, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, usually averaging about 5 hours between the two of them. In fact, I think she is sleeping more than she was last month. She’s also down to nursing only 3 times a day, now. She is well on her way to weaning herself at a year old, just like Noa did… (sniff).
Martha’s favorite “toys” these days are books. First thing she does most mornings when I bring her down to the family room is scoot over the book shelf and empty the bottom two shelves. She enjoys looking at the books too, but mostly just tossing them around and grabbing at them when Noa is reading one.
Here she is with her buddy Calvin. They are both growing so much, and it is such a treat to watch them grow together. They are interacting a bit more with each other, which is fun.
In the next photo you will see her 5 teeth and the swollen gums of one coming through. It’s been a tough process but she’s a champ and has some pearly whites to show for it. I hope the rest come through a little less painfully!
What a happy and sweet girl!! Martha is such a blessing to our family and so much fun to have around. This smile, (doesn’t it look like it’s coming from her very core?) has the power to melt my heart and brighten even a rotten day. She is such a joy!
Thank you, Jesus, for 8 wonderful months with this incredible girl. May her life always be a testimony to us and to others of your good gifts. Use that sweet smile, that YOU made, to speak love and grace to those who encounter her. Be glorified in her, we pray!
Tags: Martha, milestone, sister-sweetness
