Eight months!

Eight months - July 22, 2014

Well goodness. What a big boy we have on our hands these days!

For starters, we have two teeth! Both on the bottom, both of them about halfway grown at this point. Teething has been blissfully uneventful, for the most part. He drools more, sticks his tongue out a lot, and has a slightly harder time staying asleep at night, but otherwise he's not too cranky about the teeth-growing process. Just a little confused about what these weird things are in his mouth.

Teeth!

We've added broccoli, nectarine, apricot, and multigrain cereal to his list of foods, plus a few more sneaks of ice cream, whipped cream, and most recently, rømmegrøt (at this last weekend's Nordic Fest).

Sam has also decided that drinking out of a grown-up cup is the most hilarious thing ever. He'll watch Matt and me at dinner, and his face will light up when we take a drink...and then he'll reach out, wanting to take a sip of his own. We hold the cup up to his lips and tilt it until a little liquid hits his mouth, at which point, he tries to lap up the liquid like a cat, or inhales, and either way, once he gets some water in his mouth, he lets it all dribble out instead of actually swallowing. Which makes for a wet baby. But a very happy one!

Speaking of wet babies, Sam continues to love bathtime (he is fascinated by it), and he has now been to the pool twice! He loves the water. He'll sit in the baby end of the pool and splash around happily, and he also likes hanging out in deeper water with mama and daddy. And really, he looks extraordinarily cute in his whale swim trunks, his bright blue rashguard, and his floppy hat. Adorable.



Developmentally, I feel like he just keeps adding skills and awareness at an exponential rate. Every day seems to bring a new piece of learning, a new connection made, a new spark in his eye that makes me believe he is understanding more and more about the world around him.

He still army crawls instead of crawling on hands and knees, though he can and does push himself up into that position and rock back and forth. He is quick, even army crawling, digging his toes in and pushing off when he really wants to get somewhere with haste. He can transition from crawling to sitting and back again, and he can pull himself up onto his knees (but not yet up onto his feet without assistance). In his room, he will sit on the floor and pull his toy bin over to get to the toys inside, and he makes conscious decisions about which toys he wants to pull out and which he doesn't.

He still enjoys books - even if he is distracted or playing with other toys while you read, you can still tell that he is listening to your voice. If you stop reading, he'll turn his head to you as if to say "yup, I'm paying attention!"

The combination of his developmental stage, his teething, and a recent bit of a cold have led to an incredibly mama-focused baby. Sam is so clingy to me when it is just Matt and me around. I'll leave him with Matt to take a shower in the morning, and he will scream and be generally inconsolable (until Matt puts him to sleep....Matt has a magic touch for getting Sam to take early morning naps in bed with him). He will hear me come up the stairs and start calling out excitedly, which quickly turns to frustration if I don't materialize as quickly as he'd like. He flashes me an eager smile when he sees me, and makes a beeline for me, which is a little scary when he's on the bed and darts toward the edge to come find me.

The one place where he isn't so clingy is at daycare. For a few days now, when I've dropped him off, he has laughed and kicked and gotten excited as I open the front doors to the building, as if he really recognizes where he is. He loves his teachers, the toys, and the other babies. I'm so glad that this is such a positive experience for him. Especially because we're thinking about adding one or two more afternoons to his weeks. He is getting mobile enough that it's hard to keep him with me in the afternoons, and I'm not the best entertainment for him while I'm working. So I think we'd both be happier if he got to stay with his friends and toys in the afternoons rather than being trapped in my comparatively boring office.

After a few weeks of not being terribly interested in nursing, he is all of the sudden back to nursing in full force. He wants to nurse constantly. I'm not sure if it is hunger or clinginess, but he eats all the time. Which means that I am back to being hungry all the time!

When he is happy and excited, he locks his elbows and smacks whatever is nearby with his hands, straight-armed. Sometimes it's his high chair tray. Sometimes the floor. Sometimes my chest or belly or face. Sometimes the cats.

Oh my. He LOVES the cats. Especially Emme. And she loves him, too. When we are playing on the floor in his room, she will come in and flop on the floor next to him (her signature "pay attention to me!" move). Sam will grab her fur, grab her ears, bury his face in her belly, and then crawl on top of her. Sometimes she complains...but she is never so unhappy that she leaves! At worst, she'll get up, walk four steps away, and then flop down again, waiting for him to come over.

Sam still loves taking walks and being outside. He's losing interest in pacifiers again. He's trying to figure out how to clap his hands together, but really just succeeds in waving them around in front of his face. He blows lots of raspberries and is working on the "M" sound. He has little patience for diaper and clothing changes. He HATES getting his nose wiped, but likes the grape flavor of the baby Tylenol that we have been giving him for teething and his cold. He loves it when Matt claps his hands. He's getting better at sleeping longer stretches overnight, loves sleeping on his tummy, and at some point we probably need to revisit the idea of dropping his overnight feeding.

Little man, I love how curious you are these days, and how you observe the world around you with such serious interest. I love it when you laugh out loud, and when you wrap your arms around my neck, even when you grab my hair. You are getting so tall and so interactive. And you are still so very sweet and good-natured. Every day is a new adventure, and I love every minute of it.