8 months

Eleanor is a few days shy of eight months old and today is pretty great because she started crawling! Well, to be clear, she took one official crawl and then went right back to scooting and rolling about, but she is awfully excited about this whole exploring thing. I remember when Naomi was a baby, having so much time, just her and I, taking long naps and doing tummy time and anticipating all those very firsts. I mean, seriously, I remember her napping so long I didn't know what to do with myself. Clean the house, paint my nails, watch a movie. It was dreamy! And to be honest, it's a little bit different now. I feel like our days go by in more of a hurry, and I can't even really remember when Ellie first rolled over and now I'm walking in the room and there she is sitting up all on her own! Like, let's just slow this down a bit! So when she's all snuggled up in our bed and nursing for her nap, I'm pretty happy to break from the day and just soak it up for a while. I'm telling you, she has the sweetest, mellowist disposition of any baby I know. And let's not even get into the cuteness of her chubby baby thighs. We just adore her.

And speaking of chubby, we are barely on our second month of trying solid food and Eleanor is quite the little foodie already! Not even a year old and she has already tried chicken and waffles in Texas, french toast, macarons, bacon, sticky rice, sweet potato fries, nutella crepes, cotton candy, flan, and a whole variety of greek yogurt. Fifth baby much?! Plus she is crazy about bananas, and pumpkin, and beets, plums, cinnamon oatmeal, strawberries, the list goes on. So there you have it. Our sweet little Eleanor is taking on the culinary world. And before long, I'm sure, she'll be babbling up a storm as well. Especially since the kids love standing around encouraging her to say their names... Henry even recruited Violet to try to teach Eleanor to say HEN RY. She stands there chanting it. It's pretty cute. Also cute, how Violet loves to feed "baby Enor" and will sing the sweetest little song (she says Naomi taught her) as she gives the baby a bite and then one for herself "one for you, one for me, and we share, happy ever after!" I mean really, my babies singing to my babies. Melt my heart. And how Vi will walk in after nap and say "look! he's awake!" at Eleanor, but every time I ask if baby Ellie is a boy or a girl she insists "no. he's a baby!" Oh Violet, how I love your two year old self! And the way the kids just dote on the baby, and every one just smiles and loves on her all the time, it's enough to make the entire nine months of hardship getting her here fade into the distance. And I think really, that's exactly how it's supposed to be.