Since this is your 6, 7… and sadly, 8 month update, you better get comfortable and settle in for a long one :) I will admit that I have been procrastinating writing this post and the more time passes, the harder it gets. It’s not because I don’t want to document everything about you. It is quite the opposite actually. There is so much to say about you, that I am afraid I am not going to give justice to the memories we are building or each important milestones you are meeting . But by not writing anything or continuing to procrastinate, I am only allowing more of those memories to slip silently through the hour glass of time and that is a shame I can’t live with, therefore enough is enough…and before I digress any further, here goes nothing.
I can’t believe you are 8 months old already. As always, time continues to fly by. Sometimes I feel like you were born just yesterday, but most days I hardly remember what my life was like without you in it. You are my entire world, consuming most of my time and energy, (which is probably why these past months have gone by in the blink of an eye). You learn and grow so much and so fast I can hardly keep track of it all. (Thank goodness for that calendar I always have pulled up in Word so I can document all those seemingly insignificant moments as they occur…)
You are as talkative as ever. And I think you are going to be an expressive talker like your mommy because your arms and your legs really get to moving when you are intensly into your conversation. Your babbles are slowly, but surely resembling actual sounds, like m’s, g’s and b’s and you often like to throw out this short high pitched squeal when you are especially excited. Although I am not quite sure you were trying it, your first “official” word was Mama. Your dad thought he heard you say it when you were hanging out one night (September 28th) and then sure enough, it was sweet music to my ears on Saturday October 1st. You now use that word frequently, sometimes I think just to make noise, but other times when we are playing and you are happy… and yes, unfortunately, I think you use the word to scold me when you are mad about me cleaning out your eyes or your nose or making you lay still to change your diaper. Your brow furrows up and you get this concentrated grimace on your face as you growl out mama, mama, mama. The next word on our learning list is dada. Although I am so excited to have heard you say “mama” first, my heart longs for you to say dada and to see your daddy’s face light up when he hears it. I now repeat that word over and over when we are playing or getting you ready in the morning, hoping you will catch on.
You are such a curious child. Sometimes when there is so much going on, you don’t know where to focus or which way to turn first and therefore, you keep turning from one thing to another, trying to take it all in. We get such a kick out of watching you; your mouth hanging open, your head bobbling back and forth from one place to another. Other times, you have such an intense focus, it is hard to break your concentration. The other day, we were trying to get your attention by flashing my cell phone around, in the hopes that it would give you the ambition to crawl back toward us. However, you had spotted your pile of books across the room and were making fast progress in the opposite direction. We didn’t succeed in catching your attention until you had reached the pile of books and dispersed half of them on the floor around you. If you want something, you keep going after it until you accomplish it.
You are also very strong, and very fast. Due to your curiousity level, you want to touch and GRAB everything. Nothing is safe when it comes near your…or your grip. That little hand snakes out so fast, destruction can happen in the blink of an eye. That pile of papers just neatly organized and sitting on the desk waiting for filing; scattered, that towel full of drying bottles and accessories; yanked just enough to send everything tumbling to the floor, that email I wasn’t quite ready to send…well you get the idea.
Not only are you quick with your hands, but you are getting around nearly just as fast. You made your first few crawling moves at the beginning of October and are now able to scoot yourself around the house. Although you aren’t up on all fours yet, you can army crawl with the best of them. The gate went up in front of the basement stairs this weekend and none-to-soon.
You have been sitting on your own for quite some time now; you started doing so in the beginning of September. Within the last week or so, you have almost perfected the move to go from sitting to leaning forward into your army crawl. However, once on your belly, you haven’t figured out how to get back into a sitting position and that causes some frustration after a while. I often have to lend a helping hand and put you back up into a seated position so you can play with your toys.
Speaking of toys, some of your favorite items to play with consist of:
your drum. You love to beat on things and will often turn just about anything into a drummable surface, even the bumbo chair at daycare. Maybe uncle Jared is rubbing off on you already.
You are also drawn to a ball, of any shape and size. We often play on the floor, rolling the ball back and forth. You are really good at "catching" the ball already. As soon as it rolls within your grasp, you grab it up and like everything else these days, you pull it right up to your mouth. When we are not rolling the ball back in forth, you are scooting around on the floor pushing it around.
Like most children, you also love your bouncy seats, whether it is the one at home, up north or at grandma's. You love to jump and bounce and will only take a break to see who might be watching you. Then you give a little smile and start jumping again.
Gus continues to draw your attention, though I wouldn't say he is a toy of yours. He will come close enough to lick the food off your fingers when you are in your high chair, or give you a quick sniff and even a kiss when you are on the floor, but other than that, he keeps a just enough distance from your grubby little hands. Of course this doesn't deter you, you just giggle at the sight of seeing him and continue to pull yourself around after him.
Daddy is someone else that you love to play with. You may be a mommy's boy and always want me near, but daddy is the one who makes you giggle and has a way to make you squeal in laughter. Just seeing him come in the room makes you light up with smiles.
The last thing I will go on about is books. I am happy to say that you love your books....though I am not sure at this point whether you enjoy chewing them or reading them more. Hopefully the later is the case and we have many years of reading together to look forward to. Goodness knows, your libraby of books is big enough...
You are my great little sleeper. Aside from a two week stint when your last few teeth came in at 6 months, you have been sleeping through the night since you were five months old. You usually go to bed around 7:30 and typically sleep until 6:30 am. Bedtime is pretty easy. Some nights you get a bath and other nights we read a story or two. After that, you get wrapped up in your Swaddle blanket and we snuggle into the recliner for your night time feeding. Most often than not, you nurse yourself right to sleep. Then I kiss your smooth little cheek, tell you I love you and put you down. After that I get about two hours of “free” time (cleaning, dishes, laundry, bill paying …occasionally something fun) or time to catch up with your dad before going to bed myself.
Naps are another story and something that is never consistent, unfortunately. It fluctuates from day to day; some days you only take two ½ hour naps and I blame that in part on your curiosity…some days there is just way too much going on at daycare and you are having way too much fun with your friends to nap. But then other days you will take a one hour nap in the morning and then an even longer nap in the afternoon. I used to stress out about that, but since you get such a good solid chunk of consolidated sleep at night, I have become less worried that you will have an ill effects on your development due to sleep deprivation. :)
You now have six teeth and I think another one may be in the works! As I mentioned above, you got a slew of teeth just after you turned six months. All four of your top front teeth came in within two weeks of each other. For the most part you took it in stride and it didn’t affect your demeanor. The only real change was your proclivity for a late night feeding. I was a little worse for wear for a couple of weeks due to reduced sleep, but it could have been worse and I certainly survived. But now, the drooling has increased again and the chewing has intensified. When your last teeth came in, you didn’t have much interest in a teether, but that has definitely changed. I am always pulling something not necessarily appropriate for chewing from your little hands and giving you one of the many teething rings I have in the fridge.
Since all those pearly whites are coming in, we have started getting you in the habit of brushing your teeth. You mainly just hold the toothbrush and suck on it, but at least you are getting used to it and it won't be such a transition when we are trying to get it in your mouth to actually brush those teeth.
Eating has been quite an adventure. By now you have tried most of the common fruits and vegetables, along with a few not so ordinary choices and overall you have liked everything. Granted, you may not have liked it initially, but after giving it to you a few, errr…ten, more times, you definitely came around. Just last week we added meats into your diet. You tried turkey (mixed with something that I can’t recall at this point) and seemed to like it. Unfortunately, the adverse reaction you had to your meds coincided with this, so we have to hold off on trying turkey again for a while, just in case. So, on Friday, you tried chicken for the first time. Chicken and Apples to be exact and you loved it. You gobbled up the whole jar and still ate a serving of veggies and your cereal.
You are definitely a hearty eater most of the time. You typically eat 3 oz of fruit, 3 oz of vegetables and 2-3 oz of cereal for a meal…and occasionally we have to mix up more cereal because you are begging for more. I have been trying to increase the consistency of your food and give you a variety of small chunks to chew on. You love puffs and gobble those down no problem. However, you haven’t taken much interest in the yogurt bites, peas, chunks of cheese or bread that I have given you and will often gag when those things hit the back of your throat. So, we’ll take our time and hopefully you will be eating more than just mush before we know it.
You are still breastfed, however I typically nurse you only twice a day now, except on the weekends…we most certainly don’t deal with bottles unless absolutely necessary (dad and I dislike having to wash those things all the time). I am down to pumping twice a day (right when I get up in the morning and then again on my lunch hour at work) and that seems to be enough to cover your bottle feedings while at daycare. I hope to continue nursing until you are one and it seems that we are on the right track to making that happen. While you are still getting bottles at daycare, we have incorporated a sippy cup of water into your mealtime. You do great drinking from it, however you drop (throw) it on the floor just about as well. If I didn’t know it would end up in the floor every 5 seconds, I would be a little more inclined to put some hard earned breast milk in there and see if you would drink it that way instead of in a bottle. Either way, I am hoping this will help the transition from bottles come a little bit sooner and much more easily.
Personality wise, you continue to be a happy and content baby overall…however you do have your moments and daddy is starting to fear that mommy may have you just a tad bit spoiled. You often don’t want to be by anyone but me; if I am in the room or if you can see me from afar, but can’t get to me…watch out. You can turn the tears on in a flash. And if I am in the room, you either want to be in my arms or have me on the floor playing with you. Sometimes I just have to let you scoot around behind me, grasping at my ankles as I go about getting something done. I am hoping it is a phase that you are going through….but I’ll admit I am a little worried myself. (…and after years of watching other parent interactions from afar, and having the un-experienced opinion that most of the time they just needed to be stricter and let their child just cry it out sometimes, I am realizing that it is a lot harder than I ever thought and I just might be a bit of a hypocrite). I know I just need to let you be sometimes, but I have such a hard time doing that. I carry such guilt for working full time and being away from you most of your waking hours, that I also want to spend every possible minute with you before you go to bed. I know life is busy and that is just not possible most days, but together I hope we can figure out a happy medium.
As usual, I could go on and on...and on and on about you. But I think I have written enough for now (I must draw the line somewhere). You are the light of my life and I will continue to treasure each and every moment we have together (well most of them anyway...yes, even the cranky ones)
Love,
Mom
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