The Mayes Family: May 2013

For those of you who don't know, we are moving back to Colorado this summer. Something we have been talking about doing before moving is going to the Kansas City Zoo. Charlotte is really starting to interact with her surroundings on a more social level, so we thought it would be a lot of fun to go. Not to mention, Bryan and I have really been wanting to see the polar bears there (we are little kids at heart). We decided we should go before the heat and humidity of Kansas summers takes over - we got lucky with 75 degree weather.

Charlotte loved most parts of the zoo, except the crowds. The first time we went to look at the polar bears it was really busy and she freaked out. The second time when no one was there, she was really interested. She also liked watching the sea lions until the sea lion show started and it got loud. We learned that she likes the animals from afar better than up close. She would intently watch until they came up to the glass near her. We also quickly learned that petting zoos will not be in our future anytime soon. I tried to get her to pet a sheep and she did not like it. However, when we went to feed the deer she was okay. I guess you never know!

The only downside to our zoo trip: I forgot to put sunscreen on myself (I did remember to cover Charlotte up, though!).

My, oh my. Charlotte is already eight months old. I feel like I just posted about her being seven months old! Here is her update:

We don't have a doctor's appointment until nine months so we just weighed and measured Charlotte at home. By our calculations she is 19 pounds and 29 1/2 inches long. I have definitely noticed that she has gotten taller in the last month!
She has officially graduated to a convertible carseat. It took me over a month to research and finally decide on one, but she loves it. She is still rear-facing, but she has more room in every direction now.
She has absolutely no fear. She crawls everywhere. Tries to pull up on everything. She doesn't care if she's about to fall off the bed or pull up on something that is just going to fall over.
Her favorite place to practice standing up is in her pack'n'play. She used to just sit and play. Now if she isn't sleeping she just pulls herself up and plays with whatever she can reach.
Charlotte finally has two teeth! Her bottom two teeth came in within 24 hours of each other. Thank goodness! However, I think we are already working on her top two teeth now as she has all her teething symptoms back. There was maybe one full day of relief for her. Here's hoping the top two don't take as long to break through as her bottom two!
She gives kisses now. The big open mouth baby kisses! It is one of my favorite things in the world. She used to just do it if we asked her for a kiss, but now she will randomly give us kisses on her own. It absolutely melts my heart.
She is starting to wave. She has kind of put doing "milk" and clapping on the back burner and is really trying to focus on waving right now.
She is developed crazy separation anxiety. If I walk out of the room she cries - and not just a fuss cry. It's a big tears cry. I know it's normal for her age, but it sure makes it hard to get stuff done sometimes!
She has suddenly taken a liking to pacifiers again. She rarely used them as a newborn and then had absolutely no interest; however, right around when her bottom teeth broke through she started to want to chew on them. She doesn't suck on them. She just chews on them. I have some special teething pacifiers that she loves. I also think she partially picked up on the just chewing on it from her cousin, Penelope. She sees her doing it a lot when we FaceTime.
She has also started chewing on her thumb. Not sucking on it, just chewing on it. I'm sure it's all teething related.
Charlotte likes to watch and dance to "Yo Gabba Gabba!" and "Little Einsteins". As much as I love "Titanic", I am glad that we have some more options now.
She loves other babies/kids. If we go out to eat or go to the park and there are other kids she gets really excited. However, she is picky as to who she actually wants to interact with when they get close.
She loves extreme peekaboo. By that I mean, if we completely hide and jump up she laughs hysterically. She also jumps every time. She must enjoy the thrill - ha!
Everything is really funny to her. She cracks herself up all the time, which in turn makes us start laughing.
She will not sit still. Ever. She has to always be on the move if she is awake, whether if it's crawling around or sitting in a cart at Target. Something where she is moving. If she has to lay still she gets very mad (which is apparent by her face in her laying down 8 month photo if you couldn't tell).
Charlotte also absolutely loves to splash while in the bath now. I don't even mean just a little bit of splashing. I mean, I walk away completely wet. The floor and walls are wet. It's like the "splash zone" at Sea World.

And, as usual, our eighth month as parents:

Bryan is learning why I am so exhausted by time Charlotte goes to bed. He has been chasing her around a lot more when he gets home from work to give me a break, thankfully.
We are working on letting her explore while also establishing boundaries for her. There are just some things we'd prefer she doesn't get into and as much as we don't like telling her no, she does need to learn it. At the same time, we also trying to decide just what those boundaries should be. We definitely don't want her getting into electronics, but then we are torn as to whether or not she should be able to crawl on top of the dogs (we are concerned about them standing up and her falling on her head).
I got to celebrate my first Mother's Day. We didn't do anything too special. We did brunch the day before and that's about it. But I still loved having a whole day dedicated to being a mom!

Picture time!