On the 13th of this month, Kiera turned 8 months old.  It's the little milestones that count when kids are this young I guess.  We've rented a hall and we're starting to plan out a 1 year shin-dig.  Up to this point, having a baby has been a whole lot like having a puppy.  I can say this because I've hand a hand in raising a few dogs.  Raising a child is just at a much slower pace.  A puppy can walk pretty early on.  A puppy is sort of self-sufficient pretty early on too.  Usually by the time you have your new puppy home it can walk, bark, and eat when you give it food.  You're just responsible for house breaking it, and traching it to be a productive member of kanine society.  Bark a burglars, be nice to people that are nice to it, and be a generally "good" dog.  All of this usually happens well before your pooch is a year old.

Children on the other hand, take a lot longer to learn things.  This isnt because children, or humans in general, are slow learners, we just have a lot more life span in which to learn it.  I'd also venture that there's a lot more complexity in our brains.  Of course this is all my own conjecture.  Whatever.  My point is, 8 months for a baby is like a few weeks for a puppy.  Kiera's able to make noises that border on words.  She's started saying things similar to Da-da and Ma-ma.  She's not quite able to crawl, but she does get herself up on all fours sometimes.  She can sit up, and play with her toys.  She's able to pick her own toys out of her toy basket if you put it within reach.

All of this tells me that her little kiddo-brain is developing.  And she's growing to match it. In the way of parenting though, I can't say that we've done much more at this point that keep her clean, safe, healthy, and fed.  There's been no real imparting of wisdom, or teaching right from wrong, because you cant really do any of that until you can actually communicate.  Which I'm really looking forward to.

We havent had any more really bad nights from her.  Well, i guess occasionally we get a mid night wake-up call but most nights she sleeps right on through.  She's a good baby.  Most mornings we're looking forward to just seeing what sort of odd position she's gotten herself into over night.  Then there's that little smile she gives us when she realizes we're there to get her out of bed and ready for the day. 

Speaking of her smile.  She's got two teeth coming in, right in front on her bottom jaw.  We think she might be getting one on her upper jaw too.  A lot of parents have these horror stories about when their kids started cutting teeth.  Kiera's been pretty good about it so far.  These two sort of popped up one day, with nothing more that a little more gretzyness that ususal. 

She's also starting to get just a little more independant.  A month ago, we had trouble getting her to do anything on her own. Playing on the floor for example.  One of us wasnt sitting right there with her, she'd cry like you wouldnt believe. She's to the point now where as long as we're in the room with her, she's generally ok.  That's not always the case mind you, just a lot of the time.  She still has those needy days. 

We've started working on another room for her.  This one's her play room, and will eventually be her bed room if we have a second child.  We're not going quite as crazy on this one as we did with the nursery.  Just a coat of paint on the walls, and some girly artwork.  Jes is handing most of it, I'm just playing a supporting role.  ;)

Jes is still a stay at home mom.  We like it that way, but she's kicked the idea around of going back to work.  The down side is that Kiera would then have to go to a daycare, and daycare is expensive, and exposes your kid to a lot of germs that they wouldnt necessarily be exposed to otherwise.  This has good and bad effects.  Or so I'm told.  Some say that exposing your kids to germs like that when theyre young builds up their immune system, others say it does nothing but make grumpy parents.  Personally, I wasn't put in daycare as a child, and I think my immune system is pretty healthy.  I guess we'll cross this bridge when we come to it.  Money is tight, but no so bad that we cant live.  If it comes to that, we'll look more seriously at getting Jes into a second income.  Until then, I'm happy letting her be mommy, instead of pressuring her to bring in money. Being mommy brings enough stress.  No reason to add to her load.