Carla is 8 months old!

We have teeth! 

Two to be exact. They popped through just after she turned 7 months old. No fever, no cold, not really fussy--just a few nights of waking once and going back to sleep. Hopefully she sails through the rest of her teething days. I was prepared for an ordeal and she made it really easy on me. She's one tough cookie, that girl.

Speaking of tough cookie--Carla received her first "shiner" aka. Black eye courtesy of big brother Sal. He's very possessive of his trucks, and she's very persistent. Put the two together and it's a recipe for a fist full of wooden truck wheels in the face. I'm sure it's not the last time someone gets clocked while playing tug of war with toys. I'm just feeling a tad guilty I turned my back for a few seconds to get lunch together. I seriously need another set of eyes. And while we're at it, another set of hands would be great too.

Nothing is safe. Carla has learned how to pull herself to a stand using furniture, and she took a few side steps today, so I know cruising furniture is next on her lost of things to accomplish. What was once safe on our coffee table, is no longer. Time to move cell phones, soda cans and remotes to higher grounds. She's quite tickled with herself for climbing things, and I love the "look at me!" grin when she masters climbing something new. 

Am I ready for her to cruise? 

Absolutely not. I thought I had another month based off comparisons to her brother. He started pulling to a stand around 10 months old...we saw it coming and were prepared. With Carla, we were playing in the living room and I rolled over from playing with Sal on the floor to see her perching herself against a box of duplos. 

Thanks to my friend Brandy's IG feed and pictures of her daughter eating rice and beans, I added rice to Carla's meals and she loves it. That's probably how she got to 17 lb, 13 oz this month. She's eating a lot of purees still but I've also started cutting carrots and apples into small (I'm talking smaaaaaall) cubes and steaming them until tender for her to use as finger food. I toss some rice and halved kidney/garbanzo/pinto beans on her high chair tray and she goes to town. I was adding banana but oh.my.gawd.  Let me just say that manhandled banana acts like glue when paired with rice and beans. It's straight to bath after bananas.  

 She seems to enjoy self feeding, and despite the mess it makes, I'm happy to see her figuring out how to get food from point A to point B. We are all eating at the table now, so it's nice to have her sitting with us as opposed to rolling on the floor pulling at our feet  while we scarf our dinners down.

I'm looking forward to our move home at the end of the month which will mark Carla's first time ever in the USA. Just saying that seems crazy to me. It will also be her first time meeting grandmas, grandpas, Nanas, aunties, uncles and cousins. The only two family members that have met her in person have been her Nonno and auntie Stephanie, and she was less than 8 weeks old when those visits happened. I'm hoping for an easy transition, but I'd be foolish to think that we won't have any hiccups. Jetlag can be a bitch on its own--add one kid and it's brutal, two kids and well......we'll have to see just how long one can survive on zero sleep. It's usually only a few days until we've adjusted, so my fingers are crossed cause we have lots on our to do list upon landing.