Eight Months Old. Eight months!
Eight months is the best. He's sitting up, he's happy almost all the time, he's not mobile. Seriously the best.
Stats: No teeth, almost no hair, SO heavy. Size 3 diapers. Solidly size 12 clothes.
Other things to remember:
-Starting to feel chubby. Maybe it's a mental thing because he's SO heavy - but I feel like his cheeks are full and his whole body is just filled out.
-His mama loves him. Just really really loves him.
-Fall shenanigans. Pumpkin patches, pumpkin carving, Gardner Village. I've said it a hundred times before and I'll say is a thousand more - having a spring baby was SO good for me. And I love that this age is so good for some of our favorite traditions!
--I had to laugh when I was going through pictures of this month because the vast majority of them were of him sitting in his high chair, eating. (Or sitting somewhere else, eating.) He loves to eat, and I can sit him in the high chair and he's content to just sit and feed himself for a loooong time. He's eating SO much food. Basically everything. I'm amazed at how good he is at eating food. Even big things. Like the other day, I gave him a pretty big, pretty tough, pizza crust that I was trying to buy myself some time and was hoping he would suck on and gum it a bit. Only a few short minutes later, it was gone. I thought for sure he must have dropped it because it has been such a short amount of time - but he just sucked on it and gummed it (no teeth) until he'd eaten it all.
He loves mashed potatoes, refried beans, black beans, and annnny kind of bread or cracker. He eats so much that I have a hard time keeping up, but some of my other favorites to give him are frozen mixed veggies, or sliced apples. It's amazing to me how much food he can eat with absolutely no teeth. Like, real food like peas or crackers or diced chicken! He manages it spectacularly.
He hasn't had any further stomach problems, but I'm still trying to focus on fruits and vegetables - even though breads are just SO easy to give. Just this last week we gave him his first pureed squeezer and with a little help he devoured it. He's not quite able to do it by himself - but he sure likes to try.
-He's not crawling yet, but he sits like a champ and is pretty content to just stay where he is. I love that I can just set him on the counter while I'm making dinner and he doesn't try to go anywhere, he's just happy to be up close to me. This is a little golden window, because he's steady enough to sit for long periods of time - but he's also content to stay and doesn't try to lean or tip over.
-Some funny little things: He has really long toes. When he sits, he bends his legs so the soles of his feet touch together - he doesn't stick them out straight. When he's laying down, he curls his legs up then flops them down. But when I'm trying to change his diaper or change his clothes or even just sitting by him, he absolutely won't bend his legs. He keeps them out straight and locks his knees. It makes me laugh, but is also makes it significantly harder to do anything.
The picture with the chair above is when I took him to Lydia's Halloween party at school and just set him on the ground next to the table that I was doing a small group with. He was happy to just sit and play with the playdoh, but then I looked over and he had managed to scoot himself over to a nearby chair that he thought was quite tasty. *sigh* Germs build immune systems, right? Ha.
-Like I said, he's not even thinking about crawling. Not really. David said that the other night he went from sitting and kind of army crawled until he was on his tummy. But mostly he's content to just sit there and reach for things. He's even stopped rolling over most of the time. However, sometimes he rolls over and kind of pivots around on his tummy. So he moves a tiny bit but not crawling, at all.
-His dad makes him SO so happy. Caleb gives the best little smiles for him. I love these two, together.
-He's
such a good baby. I mean all babies are good babies. And it's not like you love them less if they are more needy. But this little guy is just so good at
being good. We joke sometimes about how he's especially good if you really need him to be good, like he knows that it would just be SO helpful if he could sit on the floor and chill. But times when you aren't
needing to do something, he might need more attention. We also joke about how he's super chill, but he has one rule "put me in my bed at my bedtime". Which is true. The other night we went to a fun escape-room-game-night with some friends. We set Caleb under the table in the room while the six of us bustled around trying to figure out clues and such. He barely made a peep. Occasionally David or I would duck down and pour out some baby puffs onto his blanket - or scoot his toy a little closer. He didn't cry a single time. It was wonderful, and our friends couldn't get over how good he was the entire time. We couldn't get over it, either.
-He's sleeping better than he was, but still waking up about twice a night. Someday I'll work on sleep training him, but until then, I'll just hope that he magically learns to sleep all the way though the night on his own. We bought a new Zipadee-Zip in size medium for him because the small was too, small - but I just love how comfy-cozy these little sleepers are. I don't know that it makes him sleep perfectly, but it does help signal sleep and help him sleep better. And he's just so snuggly in it. (Thank you ZippideeZip.) He naps about twice a day. I nurse him to sleep both times, and I know that I shouldn't, but I just enjoy snuggling his little body close to me and letting him fall asleep.
-Halloween was so fun. Caleb was our little Dalmatian riding around in Austin's fire truck. (I wore a head-set and a badge saying "Emergency Dispatch Operator.")- Although I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of just him - we were so glad to have our firehouse Dalmatian with our firetruck crew.
-It was fun to have Caleb and Austin match their Halloween costumes, because Austin's favorite thing right now is to match each other. They have matching jammies and Austin loves wearing them on the same night as much as I love dressing them in them on the same night. Boys are just as cute to match as girls are. I love them.
-This dad, he's the best. We're trying to figure out the falling asleep thing, and just as often as David ends up rocking him and being the one to get him all the way asleep for the night.
-Bath time is the best with this age. Caleb is sitting up and he loves touching and splashing in the water. Also his bath schedule is WAY more frequent now that I can bath him in the kitchen sink! But he loves the big bath, and the kids love love love having him in there with them. (Also, a note- in the first picture you can see the red splotch on his chest. I don't know what's going on, but he gets these red splotches all over his body, but they aren't real rashy and they go away pretty fast - but he almost always has one. I don't know what's causing them.)
-Austin likes laying in Caleb's lap. And putting his fingers in his mouth.
-He likes to touch your face, put his fingers in your mouth, grab your nose/eyes.
-He's such a good shopping buddy. He's always been good, but sitting up in the top part of the cart makes him even happier. I couldn't resist snapping this picture of a recent bulk-shopping trip. People were staring at me as we were rolling around, but come on. We eat a lot of pasta... and my baby really likes baby food (and I really like inexpensive baby food).
-He is smiling more and more. Basically any person can get him to smile, but his laughs are still pretty rare. Not that he never laughs, because he definitely does. He just has to be in the right mood and you have to work for it. (And he very rarely laughs for me. Lydia is the best bet, maybe David.)
(That gummy smile! My heart.)
-He is kind of tickelish. But doesn't giggle. If you tickle him, he holds his breath then lets out a gasp when you're done. It makes me laugh.
Happy eight months sweet baby.
