Oakley is 8 months old!

Look at Oakley! So excited to be 8 months old and rocking her first ponytail!

I almost titled this, “Oakley is 7 months old!”  Maybe I’m in denial she’s growing this fast?  There are still some days when I go to pick her up after work that I think to myself, “I can’t believe she’s mine forever.”  Every day when I pick her up, she gets so excited to see me and she smiles really big.  One of the little girls at daycare always says, ‘Hey Oakley’s mom!”  That’s honestly the best title I’ve been given. The other day I was thinking about how I felt and I was trying to put it into words and the best I could come up with was proud.  I just feel so blessed that she’s ours and God chose me to be her mom.

Every day Oakley learns new things. Right now her favorite things are music, dancing, the animals, being outside, and anything she can bang on something that will make noise.  She has these plastic blocks and she hits them on everything.  I always tell her I like her drum skills.  If she’s fussy, we play music and dance around the house.  She gets really excited when we watch American Idol.  She waves her arms all over the place and kicks her feet everywhere while we dance in the living room.  A friend of ours got her a music machine and she loves to play with it.  It plays classical music and it plays the sound of waves crashing or the sound of a heartbeat.  She waves, gives kisses, claps, and high fives!

She has a walker and she thinks it’s so fun to scoot all around the house. She usually tries to follow me and grab my leg.  You can tell by her smile that she’s so proud of herself when she walks in it. I think she’s getting pretty close to crawling.  She scoots and slides and just started moving backward, so I’m thinking she might start crawling any day now.  She loves the dogs and the cats. When they start barking or meowing, she gets excited, waves her arms, kicks her feet, and yells at them.  I laugh when she does it to the dogs because it almost seems like she’s telling them to calm down.  She’s already got them trained lol.  The dogs love her, even Charlie has warmed up to her and doesn’t get mad when she tries to pull her blanket out of her mouth.  If you know Charlie and her blanket, that’s saying a lot.  Abigail is the most protective and always wants to be near her.  If Oakley makes a noise, Abigail jumps up and comes trotting/ waddling over. Colt is a gentle giant and gives her the tiniest kisses.  It’s so sweet!  She smiles and laughs when they come up to her and even when they lick her she smiles ear to ear.  It’s really exciting to think how they’ll all interact when she gets a little older.  She likes to pull their ears and their collars.  She also likes to pull the cats’ fur. They don’t enjoy that as much as the dogs lol.

When we go to the grocery store, she sits in the shopping cart and waves at all the people.  She also sits in her stroller like a big girl too!  When we go to restaurants, she likes to sit in the high chair.  It seems like she gets cuddlier and cuddlier, and she loves to give hugs while she’s in the shopping cart or in the high chair.  She’s such a sweet girl!  My mom saved one of my dolls from when I was little and Oakley loves to give it kisses.  Her babysitter will sing, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and Oakley will try to do the hand motion.  Her babysitter always says that Oakley sings all day at her house. Something tells me she might be a chatter box.

We’ve tried walking on the nature trail a couple of times.  All three times, I’ve ended up carrying her most of the way.  The last time, she was fine until she looked back and spotted me through the mesh screen on the cover of her stroller.  I pretty much had to carry her for 2 out of the 3 miles.  At least she’s cute and cuddly, right?  We got a new porch swing and she loves to swing on that.  I usually pick up Garth for her so she can pet him. His short hair isn’t as easy to pull as our other cat’s.  He freaks out and tries to claw me until I set him down and we pet him and then he’s fine. I hope he gets used to being picked up by the time she’s a little older haha.

Right now, she has two bottom teeth and you can see them in pictures now. We think she might get some more pretty soon though!  Her hair seems to keep on getting lighter too.  She still is more into the vegetables than the fruit.  Squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes are probably the foods she eats the most of. She also really likes avocado.  It won’t be long and she’ll be able to eat some finger foods!  She LOVES to take sips of water from a water bottle cap.  She thinks it’s funny and likes the taste, but you can also tell she’s proud of herself for drinking it that way.  She loves bath time and thinks it’s so funny to kick her legs and splash the water. She likes to keep inching her way closer and closer to the faucet to see how far she can put her face under the water before it’s too much lol.  When I pour water over her head, she smiles and then tries to catch the water with her tongue.

She’s so active!  She always likes to be doing something, moving, or playing with something.  She usually makes me change her while she’s on her stomach because I can’t get her to stay on her back long enough.  When we sit on the ground and she plays with her toys, I sit behind her and she’ll play for a while and then lean back to make sure I’m still there and to get a hug. Once I squeeze her, she goes right back to playing with her toys.

 

Oakley has the cutest laugh. It sounds like a squeaker toy.  She thinks it’s so funny to play peek a boo and laughs when she jumps.  She brings so much joy into our lives.  I daydream all day long about what she’ll like, what she’ll be when she grows up, and all of the adventures we’ll go on together. I look forward to every kiss, cuddle, and hug.  Oakley Lane, happy 8 months, I am so ready for a lifetime more!