The Things She Carries

Yesterday afternoon I was getting a snack ready for myself and I was carrying Sophia in one arm. To keep her from slapping my orange juice and to make her more useful I gave her my string cheese to carry. I would have given her my bag of tortilla chips as well, but her other hand was already carrying a clothes hanger. It suddenly struck me as hilarious that my 8 month old was happily carrying around string cheese and a hanger, and then I realized that this is pretty cool. It wasn't very long ago that she couldn't be relied upon to carry something without dropping it!
This brings me to milestones, and I suspect I will keep coming back to this entry over the next few days as Sophia reminds me of all the new things she's capable of. Here are the first things that come to mind:
1. Sophia can grasp and hold just about anything!
2. Sophia can crawl (backwards)
3. Sophia can sit up endlessly, and her favorite thing to do is sit down with a bucket of toys
4. Sophia can sit on her own if she has plenty of toys...I can even completely leave the room!
5. If she's sucking on a pacifier and the option to nurse becomes available she now spits out her paci instead of waiting for me to remove it
6. Sophia cries out each morning when I leave the room to go to work, and I have to brace myself against this cry like one would brace against a very strong wing
7. She only cries out once or a few times, and then she falls asleep
8. Travis can get Sophia to sleep just by cuddling her
9. Sophia opens her mouth for her spoon when I'm feeding her (she likes Earth's Best brand of "summer vegetable dinner" and "butternut squash and corn")
10. Sophia loves teething biscuits
11. She has FOUR teeth--maybe 5
12. Sophia doesn't like me messing with her mouth anymore, and will mash her lips together and turn her head when I try to count her teeth!
13. My most favorite thing in the world is her laugh. Sophia laughs at silly faces, silly books, and she's very, very ticklish.
14. Sophia likes to stand up with some help
15. Sophia likes to chill with the cats and dogs and is learning to pet them nicely!
16. We're still working on "mumma" and "dadda" but I'm very sure she understands "mumma." (She yelled "mumma" the other day right as I left the room!)
17. Sophia likes juice from her sippy cup--she still gets most of it on her clothes, though
18. She takes bottles like a champ
More as I think of things...