11 months

I seriously cannot believe Eliza is 11 months old!

Eliza is crawling everywhere and doing it fast! She is pulling up to things and just barely started standing up in the crib and the bath. It makes me nervous because she's still unsteady and can easily get hurt when she tries to stand in these places. She'll be sturdy soon though!

She is nursing only about three or four times a day. She doesn't take milk from a sippy cup very well so we are going to try to transition her off of nursing by giving her milk in a bottle and then wean her off the bottle after that. She definitely prefers to nurse, so hopefully the weaning process isn't too terrible.

Every now and then Eliza will give a big cuddle or a "kiss" (open her mouth and put it up to your face) and it's the cutest thing ever. I make sure to heavily praise her afterwards because I can tell she gets excited about how happy it makes me. She will sometimes say "mama" or "dada" on command.

Eliza has almost no interest in baby food. She likes cut up fruit, sandwiches, cereal, vegetables, quesadillas, beans, noodles, pizza, and anything sweet. She likes to snack on Goldfish and Veggie Straws. She drank from a straw this month! It might seem late, but it was only about the second time she'd ever tried so I was impressed.

Eliza still goes to bed suuuper early, at around 6pm whenever possible. I was hoping to move her bedtime to later by now but she's usually such a wreck in the evenings and it's tough to get her to stay up even that late. Sometimes her naps are pretty good and other times they're terrible, but even when she naps well she still tends to go to bed by about 6:30. She sleeps really well at night and often sleeps through the night. She sleeps with her binky and likes to hold a soft little toy/doll thing. She's usually up for the day around 6 or 6:30.

Eliza is still the best dancer. Any time she hears music she'll start dancing. She loves to roll balls back and forth with us and gets super excited when the boys are playing catch and then let her have a turn. She hates the feel of grass. She goes swimming a lot and doesn't seem to love it, but doesn't hate it either.

I can't believe she'll be 1 in just a month!!! I love this cute, fun girl!

10 months!

Eliza is 10 months old!

The biggest thing she learned to do this month was crawl! She is getting faster and more efficient at it, and has also learned how to crawl over to cupboards and open them. When she starts pulling things out of them, her siblings think it's hilarious and cheer her on. Ha! She has become our human vacuum cleaner and we have to watch carefully to make sure she doesn't put every little thing she can find on the floor into her mouth.

Eliza LOVES to dance, and is the danciest baby we've had. If she hears any type of music or even if one of us starts singing, she immediately starts dancing. (Mostly by nodding her head.) It's so cute and funny!

Eliza babbles a lot, and has started to be able to say "mama" on command. Yay! She loves Peek-a-Boo and can hide her own face now. She loves This Little Piggy (with her toes) and Patty Cake. (with her feet) She sometimes likes the bath, depending on her mood.

She's in size 3 diapers and size 18 month clothes. She doesn't love dresses since she can't crawl very well in them. She nurses 5 times a day. (when she wakes up, 10am, 12:30pm, 3pm, and 6pm) She usually goes to bed right around 6pm. She is still a pretty bad napper, hence the super early bedtime. She sleeps through the night more often than she doesn't. She loves food and prefers grown up food to baby food. She's good at self feeding, though she usually ends up SUPER messy. :-)

Eliza is getting better at imitating us, and loves to smack her lips back at us when we kiss her. She is good at charming everyone around her. She has started to hate her headbands and tries to pull them off all the time. She doesn't really like being on grass. She likes the pool and being in her float. She likes being outside but doesn't get to hang out outside for long if we're not on the pool since it's July in Phoenix, and SO HOT.

Eliza is learning like crazy right now and it's so much fun to watch! She's so fun and sweet and I can't believe we're only two months from her first birthday!

Crawling!!

On Saturday, July 7th, 2018, Eliza crawled for the first time! She'd been very close for the whole week leading up to that day. I could see that she was finally starting to get it, so I got the whole family together and brought her into the front room with some Goldfish so we could all witness her crawling for the first time. And even though it took her a couple more tries to fully figure it out, she did it! She had quite the cheerleading team. Yay Eliza!

9 months!

Eliza is 9 months old!

Here are her 9 month stats: (taken at 9 1/2 months)

Weight: 18 lbs, 4 oz (44th percentile)
Height: 28 in (48th percentile)
Head Cir: 18 in (87th percentile)

Eliza slept through the night for the first time just after turning 8 months old! Since then she has slept through the night maybe half of the time. It has been amazing! She has just barely started taking just two naps a day. These naps are at about 9 and 1. She wakes up around 6:30 (sometimes closer to 6) and goes to bed around 6 pm. Her early bedtime is mostly because her naps often aren't very long.

Eliza claps! She does it spontaneously but will also do it on command if you say, "Yay Eliza!" She loves her new trick and so do we! She doesn't like being on her belly, and still doesn't have a huge interest in crawling. If she attempts to move around while on her belly, she'll either roll over or move backwards. I can tell that it is starting to bother her that she's not mobile.

Eliza's first two teeth just barely popped in! She doesn't seem to notice them or care. When it comes to food, she likes both baby food and table food. She is great at self feeding. She nurses 5 or 6 times a day. I still wake her up for a feeding around 9 or 10 pm about half the time. I am slowly cutting out this feeding. She is wearing size 3 diapers and size 12 month clothes.

Eliza babbles a lot and says Mama and Dada a lot, though still not on purpose. She likes to play by hitting you in the chest and having you say, "OUCH!" really playfully. She likes to knock over block towers and likes when people are super animated with her. She likes Peek a Boo and Patty Cake with her feet. She hates when she topples over. She also hates when there's a ton of commotion, especially in the evening when she's tired.

We love this girl!

8 months

 I can't believe Eliza is 8 months old!

Eliza has no teeth or even any sign of any teeth. She is in 12 months clothes and size 3 diapers. She has yet to sleep though the night, though she has been pretty dang close a couple times. She definitely can't crawl yet and doesn't seem to have any interest in learning. She can stretch and reach pretty far though from the sitting position. Good thing she's pretty flexible! 

She still takes about 3 naps a day and usually wakes up around 6:15 am. She still isn't the best napper. She likes lots of foods. She eats both table food in little pieces and baby food. She will eat almost everything that I give her and very much enjoys meals and snacks.

Eliza likes the bath. Since she goes to bed around 6:00, she usually takes her bath by herself. (Her siblings are usually still downstairs playing.) I put just a little bit of water in and she likes to splash and suck on rubber ducks.

Eliza is still a good nurser. She nurses about 6 times in a 24 hour period. Her last feeding is at about 10 pm. I usually wake her up for this feeding and do it so that she doesn't need to eat during the night. Just after she turned 7 months old I dropped her middle of the night feeding and she adjusted easily.

She said, "mama!!!!" I was so excited, even though she doesn't know what she's saying. :-) Shortly after she said, "dada." She says dada more often, but I like to point out that she said mama first. Ha!

Eliza is ticklish and likes patty cake and peek-a-boo. She really likes textured balls. She also loves baby crackers and Puffs. She is still so much fun! She is growing up way too fast!

7 months

My baby girl is 7 months old!

Eliza turned 7 months old while we were on a quick weekend trip to Vegas. It was on this trip that she let us know that even though she's now okay with short car rides, she definitely still doesn't like long ones. Ha!

Eliza is in 6-9 month clothes and size 3 diapers. She still doesn't really have much hair. She sits really well by herself but still doesn't like to be on her tummy and doesn't pull up on her hands and knees. She likes patty cake using her feet. She went through a brief period of hating the bath but seems to be coming out of it.

Eliza has still never slept though the night. :-( I am about to cut out her one middle of the night feeding. She typically eats about 6-7 times in the day and once at night. She is a terrible napper and she rarely, if ever, takes a nap longer than a half hour or maybe 45 minutes.

Eliza still likes books and enjoys grabbing the board books. She is eating baby food more often, and also often has soft foods (like fruit) cut up into super tiny pieces. She still eats in the Bumbo on the table, but it's just about time to pull out the high chair. She loves eating baby crackers.

Eliza enjoys her siblings. She has just barely gotten stranger danger! She doesn't like if me and Michael are around but someone else is holding her. Whenever she's eating, she is VERY easily distracted and usually pulls off several times during each nursing session. She loves when she's distracted by Michael and will smile at him endlessly. She loves me but is also a daddy's girl!

We love this girl so much. She's happy but also has some sass and it keeps us on our toes! :-)

6 months!

Here are Eliza's 6 month stats:

Weight: 16 lbs, 1 oz (42nd percentile)
Height: 26 1/4 in (52nd percentile)
Head Cir: 17 1/4 in (84th percentile)

I cannot believe my baby girl is 6 months old!!!

I wish I could bottle up her baby-ness and keep it forever. Now that I really understand how dang fast time flies with my babies, every passing day (even the hard ones!) just kill me sometimes because my babies are little for such a short time. With Eliza being my last baby, every milestone is both exciting and a huge punch in the gut. I always feel so torn - excited to see her grow and devastated that her babyhood is slipping away. It probably doesn't help my sadness that she is such a sweet baby. Don't get me wrong - heaven knows she has her moments, :-) but in general she's pretty easygoing and fun.  I really wish I could freeze time.

Eliza has a huge fan base at home. From day one she's been pretty darn smothered and she handles it like a champ. (Most of the time. Ha!) She loves when her siblings are around (which is almost always) and her eyes light up when she sees them. I often have to make the other kids leave while I'm trying to feed her because Eliza is SO easily distracted when one of them is near.

Eliza liked being swaddled for way longer than most babies. It got tricky because she was way too strong for the traditional swaddle, but still wanted to be swaddled, so I'd swaddle her but she'd break out of it quickly and get upset. I finally had to pull the plug on swaddling and we had a few rough days but she's gotten over it. Her sleeping has been pretty average for a Byram baby. She has some fussy evenings due to never napping all that wonderfully, but she goes to bed early and only wakes up once or twice to eat. Lately, it has been just once and that is heavenly. Sometimes she tries to get up at 5:30 or so but I can usually get her back to sleep for about another hour. She decided not to be the first baby to sleep through the night before 6 months but that's okay - it'll happen soon enough.

Eliza loooooved the bath for her first couple months of life, and then went through a brief phase where she all of the sudden hated the bath. Sad!! And I was rarely willing to skip her bath because that girl has been my pukiest baby and was always in need of a bath by the end of the day. Luckily she has started liking the bath again - especially now that she can pretty much sit.

She HATED the car for forever, but has started doing better with that as well. She still gets upset for a minute when I put her in the carseat, but I think she's resigned to the fact that she's going to have to get used to it.

Eliza really loves to be outside. She does super well in the stroller and the carrier. (Facing out so that she can see.) I'm pretty sad that summer is coming up because I won't be able to take her out as much. Let's hope she likes the pool! Eliza didn't love solids until about 5 1/2 months, but now she LOVES them and is doing fantastic with eating. She likes almost everything I've given her. She eats purees mostly, but also loves when we let her taste whatever we are eating. Eliza also loves when I read her books (especially Touch and Feel books) and enjoys her playmat and ExerSaucer. She likes things that light up and make noise. She does not like when one of her siblings cries. She also dislikes the blender and the vacuum - they're too loud and it freaks her out.

Eliza is so fun and such a sweetheart. I feel truly blessed every single day to be her mom and to be able to spend my days with her and her siblings. It is such a joy to watch her explore the world and become increasingly curious about everything around her. I am so excited for it to continue. Love you Eliza!