8 and 9 month update

This is long overdue! Once again it is amazing how far she has come since the 6 and 7 month update.  We are almost at Labor Day (I know crazy) and she was an entirely different baby at Memorial Day.  So far from 5.5 months to 8.5 months has been the biggest leap.  She was crawling at 7 months and by 8 months she was crawling super fast, pulling up on things and walking while pushing a walker.  Between 8 and 9 months she was walking a little faster with the walker, cruising on furniture and standing up for a few seconds without holding on. 

At 8 months, she started clapping and waving, but would only do it as a happy motion.  She did not understand how to "wave hello and goodbye". Between 8 and 9 months we mastered the hello and good-bye wave and loves to seek them (as well as smiles) out when we were in public places. We also started to play "hide and seek", we like to drop items and then look for them and we love to take things out (baskets, drawers...).  One of our favorite new things to do is giving "kisses".  Savanna also loves being at the park when there are a lot of dogs and kids to wave at and watch :) Sometime between 7 and 9 months we learned how to say Dada and then Mama but we only say them in babbles and they are not directive.  

She loves to bang on tables!

We were at the beach for her 9 month birthday, which was very exciting because we finally overcame our fear of the beach.  She loves the baby pool and playing in the dry sand (although as we were scrubbing the sand off her face we were wondering why we wanted her to like the sand).  We tolerated the wet sand and ocean by the 2nd day but every time we went we had to slowly get adjusted to it.

Savanna LOVES to eat now!  She thinks if she is sitting at a table she should be eating, even if she has already eaten.  We are going to start testing the milk and soy at 11 months and besides berries and nuts we eat most things.  Majority of the time she eats pretty much anything you put in front of her, but sometimes she is picky and has learned how to spit the food out.  She doesn't really love purees anymore and mostly eats finger foods but for on the go she still likes the pouches.  Since she still cannot have milk and soy, I could not introduce animal and graham crackers and unfortunately most of the Gerber "cookies" have soy in them.  I made homemade animal crackers but they came out a little too hard (going to try again soon). I found these great Cinnamon School Book cookies and Speculoos cookies at Trader Joes that she loves and are great substitutes if you are dairy and soy free!  She also likes puffs (can't do Gerber ones), mum mums and cherrios.  

I think that is all for now, it is really incredible to watch her grow, learn and experience life's firsts.....