The babe is now eight months old. We are two-thirds of the way through the first year. That's a little crazy to my mind.
Anyway, the past few months (from about the 4th or 5th month) are my favorite stage of the first year. Their little personalities start blooming, and they're so curious and happy and friendly. You start to figure out some of their preferences (sleeping with socks, using a blankie to self-soothe, etc.), and they seem to go through this really easy period where they're content to sit and watch all the action, and everything is just peaceful for a little while. That's going to end this month (I'm not a fortune-teller... We're just already a week and a half into the ninth month as I write this, and the peacefulness has ended, but more on that in his nine-month post), but it was really nice while it lasted.
No doctor appointment until his nine-month checkup, but these are some of the things he was doing between the seventh and eighth months:
- He's starting to try to crawl. He will lean forward from a sitting position, almost to a crawling position but still hesitates and won't go all the way. He inches and scoots around, and he could get up on his hands and knees by the end of the month. A couple of times when I would go to get him out of his crib, he would hear the door open and just pop right up on all fours, then rock himself back and forth like he thought that would get him somewhere. This is a new experience for me because Brock never crawled on his knees. He always did the army crawl where his legs just kind of dangled behind him, and he looked slightly like a paraplegic who had fallen out of his wheelchair. So to see Roman figuring out how to move into that "normal" crawling stance has been fun.
- His second tooth finally came in about mid-month. It took forever and was stupidly disruptive and apparently caused him all sorts of anguish. (Refer to his seven month post for my unsympathetic complaining about how, to my children, teething seems worse than dying a slow, painful death). So he has both of the bottom front teeth, which means no more using our fingers as teethers. It also means there have occasionally been a few incredibly painful nursing moments, which nearly resulted in me punching him in the face (not really, but maybe). I think he's learned not to do it anymore now though, and I've learned to pay close attention to any signs that he's finished eating.
- On the subject of eating, he's experienced a lot more finger foods this month. I can't remember everything we've introduced, but some of his favorites are avocado, blueberries, graham crackers... eh, I'm sure no one is really interested in this list. He does love to eat though. Blaine gave him a whole avocado one night, then just kept feeding him random stuff because "Hey, if he wants to keep eating, why not keep feeding him?" Then we figured out that's probably not the best philosophy after he threw up half-digested avocado and other randomness all over me, his freshly bathed and pajama-ed self, and his bedroom rug right before I put him to bed.
- He started waving at the beginning of month. Mostly it's just random, but occasionally he'll do it in response to our waving bye-bye to him. It is definitely his sign for "more" though when he's eating. If you don't get him his food fast enough, he starts opening and closing his fists frantically like, "more, more, MORE!" I was trying to teach him the sign language sign for the word "more" (it's basically the only one I know, other than "please" and "poop"), and Blaine said, "I think he already has his own sign."
- He learned how to dance this month. We're not doing the waltz or the quick-step by any means, but he will bounce his little body up and down when he hears music. It reminded me of Brock's dancing back in this little video post.
- He is starting to occasionally respond to his name when we call it, but that's not very consistent, and it could just be a response to the sound of our voice, so... not sure about that one yet.
- He sits up great now and can move from sitting to lying down on his stomach without just falling over. I like being able to plop him down on the floor with a bunch of toys and let him go to town without worrying about whether he's going to just topple over and bust his head.
- He finally quit waking in the middle of the night after that second tooth came in, so I'm pretty sure that was what messed him up last month. By the end of the month, he was back to sleeping from about 7:30pm - 6:30am again (with the dreamfeed at 10:30 still; he hasn't given it up yet, boo).
- He's gotten really consistent with his naps. His awake time has extended to about 2-2.5 hours between naps (a little more like 3 or 4 hours in the evening before bed), and he sleeps from about 9:45-11:00ish and then 1:30-3:00ish every day (give or take 30 minutes). I love when they get to this consistent schedule because it makes things a lot easier. I especially love that his and Brock's afternoon naps line up at about the same time every day, so I can get my own little free time after I get off work.
- And last, as can be seen in one of the sets of pictures below, this kid is very active. There is no more leaving him on any elevated surfaces like our bed or the couch (I mean, not that any responsible parent would ever do that, of course). Even without being able to crawl, he can move, and move quickly. He loves to jump and bounce and has mastered the doorway jumper thing in ways I've never seen before... seriously, he sometimes looks like he's performing some kind of ballet routine in that thing. So he's a lot more physically inclined than Brock really was at that age. Brock has always been more focused and skilled with the verbal/intellectual development and less in the gross motor skills department, and now I'm interested to see if that will play out in different pursuits for each of them later on. But that's enough about all that... On to the pictures.
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These are the crazy, active shots I was referring to. I could barely take a decent picture because I kept having to put my hand up to keep him from diving off the edge of the chair.
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Anyone who is ever on the fence about having more than one child, I give you the following as evidence in favor of taking the plunge. I love the relationship between these two, and it's a pain in the neck (literally... my neck is killing me right now) having multiple children, but nearly every day, I think how thankful I am that we didn't stop with just one. Hopefully I'll be saying the same thing five or ten years from now.
(Unprompted and unscripted... I promise!)
