35 weeks old: 8 months old, working hard, and pneumonia

Eloise turned 8 months old this week. Since she started crawling she has gotten a lot busier! Her days are filled with exploring and tiny grunts of effort. Everything is so interesting and she works hard to make her way over to something and use all her senses to take it in. The maraca she's holding in the picture below - she'll hold it out and look at it, turn it over in her hands, shake it, and then put it in her mouth. 

Ever since she could scoot she has been especially interested in the bag of recycling in the kitchen. Now that she's able to get herself more upright she tries to take that sucker down daily. 

Tiny dumpster diver

Eloise has been battling a bout of pneumonia this week. It came on fast with a wet cough starting last Tuesday and we took her to the doctor the next day because she developed a fever, difficulty breathing, loss of appetite, and general malaise. A chest X-ray revealed pneumonia. She's finishing up a 10-day course of penicillin, which has been no fun to administer, but she is feeling much better. She just started eating solids again yesterday. Poor thing has been sick nonstop since starting daycare in January.

Another challenge this week was that Eloise took a tumble and bonked her head on Monday. It left a red mark on her forehead. I put Eloise on our bed while I pulled out a box of clothes from under the bed. I had the box open and was looking down into it when suddenly Eloise appeared in the clothes. She had crawled right over the edge and fell into the box! Mom fail. Thank goodness she fell into clothes and not onto the hardwood floor. It was so scary! The red mark was gone the next day but I still feel like the worst mom in the world. Eloise cried for less than a minute and then did a happy dance a couple hours later:

Irish Jig?

Eloise has been working hard at climbing and pulling herself up more since standing in her crib last week, although she's not very steady at all yet.

 Climbing Mount Mommy

Grunt, grunt

I like to pull myself up and bang the top with my hand

Eloise does the cutest thing when she needs a break while crawling. She'll roll over onto her side and rest for a second. It looks like she's striking a pose.

Gimme a second

Okay, here I come!

Hi Mommy!