OUCH!

What you see above tells the story of a VERY long week at The Kim House. I know this image may be shocking – after all, usually there are only shiny, happy pictures on this blog showing what a darling little baby we have and how sweet she can be. Of course she’s still darling, and of course she is a sweetie – but this is Ruby during one of her toughest times so far: Teething.

Teething is cruel, very cruel. Some babies just wake up one day and have a new tooth in their mouth. This is not our baby. Our happy delightful baby seems to get taken away by the evil lords of Teething Town and they leave us with a baby who won’t sleep at night, who won’t nap, and definitely will not smile. It’s really traumatic actually – not only for Ruby, but for us! Thank goodness the 3 little buggers on top causing her all sorts of misery seem to have broken through now … and hopefully we’ve made it through ’til the next round!

On the bright side, can you even imagine how much cuter she’s gonna be with pearly whites on the bottom AND top now?!?

7-8 Months

I’ve been a very bad mommy. I missed our 7 month update, and we’ve only got about a week of our 8 month left! But with so much change happening these days – it’s tough to keep up! As I try and think about what’s all changed, I struggle to not take the easy route and just say “EVERYTHING!” But here’s what I have come up with …

*She has hair – lots of hair! Now, we have to brush it when she wakes up in the morning and a few times during the day. My favorite part? She can wear a bow in her hair just like me now!

*She is scooting. And even crawling, kinda. Anything set just outside of reach can be motivation to get moving. All I have to do is set a piece of junk mail on the floor, and she can scoot/crawl right over to get it almost immediately. Curiosity is definitely the name of the game!

*She likes to stand up! Daddy keeps encouraging “cruising” along the couch or the bed while she stands on her feet (but I keep telling him all in good time! ha). This girl loves to stand up. Some have even said she’d probably skip the whole crawling around thing and just start walkin’. We’ll see about that. So far, it’s just too cute watching her stand on those skinny little legs while she looks so proud of herself.

*She feeds herself (sometimes). Our girl definitely prefers the finger foods over purees, so we have been experimenting with baby- led weaning which, in a nutshell, encourages a baby to feed themselves small bits of solid food themselves. We cut up pieces of banana or potato, quarter up grapes, give chunks of avocado and let her snack on her favorite – Cheerios. As she develops (and we get braver), we work up to things like cooked pasta, small bites of soft cooked vegetables and more. She still loves her sweet potatoes and carrots in a jar, but she is really digging on things off our plates. We’re excited about building up a diverse and healthy palate for her!

And now for some stats…

Height/weight: We plopped her down on our bathroom scale the other morning and it read 16.2 lbs.! She seems to be on the petite side these days as she is still wearing 6 month size clothes. We’ll get more info at her 9 month well baby appt. coming up in August.

Current likes:
*Waving bye-bye
*Eating cheerios
*Petting Ricki
*Bubbles!
*Going swimming!

Current Dislikes:
*Diaper changes
*Being in the car seat (STILL)

Notable events:
*Meeting her newest cousin, Evan Kole Facey!
*Celebrating Father’s Day with Daddy, Papaw & Harabuji
*Going camping for the 1st time
*Visited Pretend City, the L.A. Zoo and the Long Beach Street Food Festival
*Went swimming and successfully held her breath and went underwater

We’ll leave you with a short video clip showing Miss Ruby on her feet, standing, smiling and giggling: