Time FLIES. Claire at 8 Months

Claire is getting SOOOO big!! I can't believe how time flies. From one day to the next she advances, and from one week to the next, she gets TEETH!! Crazy!! Here are some of her milestones and quirks :)

1. Claire likes to ham it up for the camera. Now, she ALWAYS smiles for it!! I didn't even know she knew what the camera was or anything--guess they catch on pretty quickly!(EVEN when she TOTALLY has a boogar bubble coming out of her nose...she's a baby, she doesn't care!)

2. She is the biggest flirt. All throughout our trip to Chicago people would smile at her in the airport and other places and she always smiles and giggles at them.

3. Jordan likes to do the "I love you" hand sign to her practically every day, and without fail, she'll grab his finger an insert it into her mouth...

4. She is starting to insist on feeding herself. In fact, the entire time in Chicago she would NOT eat from a spoon!! She was teething and that probably had something to do with it, but she'd only eat finger foods. She likes yogurt melts, nutrigrain bars, freeze dried strawberries, apples, pears, bananas, cheerios, and to drink, likes apple juice, ice water, and gatorade. But if it's a "good enough" puree...she'll eat from a spoon :)

5. Especially when she's getting tired, she likes to...."vocalize." She makes what my friend Rachel describes as a "baby dinosaur hatching" noises... sometimes we call her "Clarasaurus" or "Claradactyl" because she really sounds like one...especially the pterodactyl.

6. Kind of annoying, but when you pick her up to hold her, she will push off of you incessantly until you've turned her around into a sitting position against you, so she's facing out as you walk around with her. So spoiled!!

7. I think I've mentioned her razor-sharp nails before??? Well, even clipping them doesn't help...then they're just shorter razor-sharp nails. The problem is that she REALLY likes to pinch and gouge my skin. Especially when she's nursing, she'll put her little fist up on my clavicle area and start gouging my skin with those nails!! OWWW!! Or she'll grab hold of my relief society arms and pinch the fat! It's awful. I have scars!

8. She now has two bottom teeth. They broke through within a week (a very LOOONG week!) and now her little fangs may bite me...I hope not...but am preparing for that...

9. Now, when she cries in her crib (ok, so she's been night-waking...the whole teething thing, traveling thing, etc...) she actually sits UP or stands UP in it!! AHH! And tonight she's in her crib but I'm a little worried bc I haven't lowered it....hopefully she doesn't take a nose dive when she wakes up!

10. Speaking of sitting and standing up, I very commonly find her holding onto objects, chairs, etc. and pulling herself up. Today, she was eyeing the STAIRS. Woah nelly... *update: since it took SOOO long to finally post this...she already crawls up like 3 stairs now...