Happy 8 Months Wren

I'm not sure if there was anything more exciting during Wren's 8th month than these...

PIGGIES!

I myself live in ponytails most of the time, but pigtails, in a little baby girl's hair - well, that just takes cuteness to a whole new level! While on the topic of hair, I figured I should take a photo to document just how much Wren has at 8 months. As you can see, when wet, it's down to her shoulder blades in back. Once dry it's got a lot of curl and shortens up by a couple inches.

The past month Wren had her 1st road-trip to Green Bay where we visited both my parents, Joe ran the marathon and I ran about two thirds of it. Although on the road much of the time, it was a great mini get-away for the three of us. Our chance to reminisce about the days of when parenting was a bit simpler.

We also spent a lot of time in the great outdoors this month. Wren's first tent camping adventure as well as many weekends spent at Joe's parents pool and the neighborhood park pools. Wren loves being in the water!

Wren has totally found her tongue this month and is sticking it out a lot and making more sounds. She's been giving me tons of gummy smiles, too. Or maybe I'm just noticing them even more than usual because I know a tooth will likely be arriving soon (Max & Otto both had their 1st tooth by 9 months).

Wren's favorite toys of the moment are stuffed animals. I love it! While the boys had snugglies that they used at bedtime, neither of them was really drawn to play with the many stuffed animals we have around the house. But Wren will almost immediately crawl to the stuffed toys and clamber to a stand on the couch to pull a really big stuffed bunny I keep there. Then she'll hold and hug and roll around playing with them. She's particularly enamored with a bright orange and pink monkey from her cousins Grace & Lyla. She loves to chew on the monkey's toes!

Mealtimes continue to slowly improve, meaning she's eating a little better. She definitely prefers to feed herself finger food like Cheerios and bites of banana rather than spoonfuls of baby food. She also loves trying to use her sippy cup, even though it doesn't appear that she's getting anything out of it.

Wren's 8th month brought a 2nd audible gasp from a Doctor given her "state of affairs." Similar to the dermatologist seeing Wren's rash a couple months ago, our pediatrician saw Wren's "leaky" face and said "I am glad you brought her in." Wren's eyes, nose, mouth and ears were a leaky mess. Turns out Wren is the first of our three kids to have an ear infection. We had avoided a penicillin prescription for nearly four and a half years. But with her diagnosis of double ear infection and double pink eye, we started that stuff and have been washing a lot of diarrhea out of clothes and bedding since. Wren is on the mend, which means the snotty snarls in her hair are also on their way out (I've taken to using Pantene Pro-V conditioner to get through the tangles)!

Wren's 8 month birthday fell on Father's Day, and just a few days past all of my birthday celebrations and a couple friend's birthday celebrations. All that means is we were, once again, inundated with a whole lot of cake and treats in our house. So, I ended up not making the dessert I planned to for Wren. Perhaps I will in another week once our sugar levels have stabilized.

Of course we still had a little dessert to commemorate 8 months. While at the pool Otto was more than willing to help his little sister get her first taste of a Drumstick. And once she got ahold of the ice cream cone she did not want to let it go.

Happy 8 Months!

Love you, Wren!