Ada at eight months.

So here we are at eight months. It has only been two months since our last update, but a lot is going on, so I thought it was worth checking in.

Ada is now 8.9kg/19 lbs 9 oz and 71.5 cm/28 in. That's the 81st percentile for weight and 84th for height. So she's gone up on both, but is still proportionate. The health visitor suggested that I could cut out one or two of her feeds, but I'm not worried so I'm just going to let her work it out. Since I'm still breastfeeding her, she self-manages anyway, and it's not like she's obese. It just means that if she misses a feed for whatever reason, I'm not concerned. And she does occasionally refuse a feed as well, so we're both doing just fine.

One of the big events that happened in the last two months was of course a visit from Mimi and Pa. Hooray!

Sporting her very first garbage bag rain jacket

Helping Pa install her new stair gates

The other big event, second only to an M&P visit, was the Olympics. Although we do try to minimize Ada's exposure to TV as much as possible, I was too obsessed with the Olympics to be precious about protecting her from it. And surely sports don't count? At any rate, she was interested in whatever it is she saw when she looked at the screen, and she particularly smiled whenever the BBC presenter Hazel Irvine came on (I'm a Clare Balding booster myself, but that's OK). She did make it known when she felt the TV had been on too long; I think she sensed that she wasn't the center of attention.

The biggest change in the last two months is that I am back at work and Ada is now at nursery three days a week. She goes to Charlton Nursery, which is halfway between home and work for me. Although different carers come in and out, there are three main nursery nurses (as they call them here) who are always there: Lizzy (who is the room lead), Jo and Tash (short for Natasha, I'm assuming). They're all really lovely and Ada seems to like them all.

They're good about not taking photographs of the kids unless they have the permission of the parents, so I don't have any photographs from inside the place. But here are some of the outside, including one Ada took of herself outside the nursery this week.

Ada does a lot of waving now. She waves hello and she waves good bye. Today when I picked her up from nursery, Jo said that everyone who came in or out of the room throughout the day got a wave from Ada.

Mark says that on their walk to the park this evening she waved at all the cars that drove by.

Ada plays peekaboo all the time. Sometimes she'll hold up the blanket or cloth or whatever for ages, and you have to riff on where's Ada? She must be here. Or maybe she went out? etc for ten minutes until she decides she's ready for the "There she is!" Also, sometimes she'll be holding something and start up peekaboo not really thinking through that whatever she's holding doesn't actually cover her face. It's kind of funny going through the "where's Ada?" routine while she's holding a plastic cup on her head and looking at you.

Ada is now very good at sitting up, crawling, pulling herself up and standing while holding onto something. She hasn't yet got to where she can let go, nor has she started "cruising" yet. If she is standing up and holding on, and realizes that she wants to move over a bit, she'll let go, sit down, crawl over and then stand up again. But she is to the point where she'll only hold on with one hand, and she's just started getting pretty good at holding on with one hand while she reaches down to pick something up. She's also getting much better at sitting down again when she's ready without bumping down too hard or banging her head on whatever she was just holding onto.

With her friend William

Looking down through the rainforest canopy

Eating solids is going well. She now has three meals a day and usually a snack in the morning, with water at meals and whenever I can remember to offer it. She does seem to like her food. Although she does the normal make-a-face whenever she eats something for the first time, she generally comes around to most things. And like all people, she'll like some things on some days and other days she won't. The things that currently she seems to eat, whatever the day, whatever the time, whatever her mood are yogurt, avocado and watermelon. If there is anything that isn't a texture or taste that she likes, if I mix it up with yogurt, it's pretty certain that she'll eat it. She gets through a lot of yogurt.

Ada's sleeping continues to improve. She still wakes up in the night to feed, but right now "normal" is once per night, some time between 3 and 5. She has had the occasional night of sleeping through, from 7pm to 6am, but it's still the anomaly. Most days, however the night has gone, she wakes up either at 6:15 or at 7:15/7:30. 

Her naps are great at home, with two naps a day at 9 and 1pm, usually an hour or more at a time. But they are not great at nursery. She goes down fine when she's there, at the same time as at home, but she only ever sleeps for half an hour. I'm hoping it's just because she's getting used to things there (it has only been a week and a half!) and that she starts sleeping longer in time. I hate to think that she's not going to get enough sleep three days a week. We'll see. But interestingly, I don't think nursery makes a difference one way or another to whether she sleeps through the night or not. 

Bath times are still a joy. She loves to play and is getting good at splashing, which is great for her swim classes, that have just started up again after a summer break.

Doing her "Baby Lenin" impression

Ada of course still loves to fly and Mark obliges every chance he gets.

She has rediscovered her love of the washing machine and dryer. This of course is great news for me, since I don't have to feel bad about dragging her into the utility room when I need to get stuff done.

Ada is also still very interested in the iPad, phones and any camera pointed her way. I really do think she thinks she could do a better job at taking pictures than us because she's always trying to work the camera.

She's just a delight in every way!