Dear Joe,

You turned 8 months old this week.  As I mentioned on Facebook, how on earth did that happen?!  It seems like just a short while ago we were remarking on the cute, hours-old newborn noises that you were making in the car on the trip from the hospital to Birthcare.

 

Less than 24 hours old

Nowadays, you are all over the place and such a joy to be around.  As I told your daddy, “He’s the kind of baby that makes me want to have another baby”.  I’m glad you’re such a happy little guy!

Movement

You have been working on your crawling every day.  You do the “army man crawl”, where you hoist yourself up on your arms and scoot your tummy across the floor.  This works quite well for you, actually.  The other day, I put you in the lounge and went to the other end to make myself a cup of tea.  By the time I’d poured myself the tea and turned around, you’d moved across the carpet and were reaching for the DVDs.  I have a feeling that it’s time to start baby-proofing things!

Of course, crawling isn’t the only thing that you’re keen to try.  You also love to stand and “walk” with our assistance.  In fact, you’d rather be standing than sitting.  The last time we were at Wriggle & Rhyme, I had to hold you up on your feet for most of the session.  Whenever I tried to put you in my lap, you’d cry, but as soon as you were standing you’d begin to coo, babble, and smile at the baby next to you.  You’ve gotten to be so good at standing that I’ll even leave you unassisted for a few minutes while I’m doing something else in the room.  You don’t mind.

Eating

We started you on 3 mini-meals just yesterday.  Right now, it’s probably 55/45 breastfeeding/solids.  You eat many of the same things that we eat, just without any added salt and making sure that it’s not too spicy.  I’ll usually pulse it once or twice with the hand-blender if it’s too much for you to chew {still no teeth yet!}.  Here’s an idea of what you might eat:

• Breakfast – Half of a cooked egg + a few chopped slices of mandarin, or perhaps a homemade spinach/spirulina/potato pancake + a bit of homemade applesauce
• Lunch – Usually whatever we had for dinner the night before! Yesterday, you ate a mixture of cooked beef mince {ground beef}, soft pasta, silver-beet {Swiss chard}, onion, fresh ground pepper, and some cumin with a “dessert” of homemade applesauce
• Dinner – Again, it’s usually whatever we are eating.  Last night you had a mixture of beef mince, fresh diced tomato, corn, lettuce, a tiny bit of cottage cheese, and “dessert” of homemade peach puree

One of the cutest things about this new phase of solid food?  You, sitting in the high chair, with your foot propped up on the tray.  You do this all the time and it’s so adorable!

You’ve gotten to be pretty good about that fine finger grasp and picking up food.  You make a mess sometimes, but it’s all part of the learning process 🙂

Talking

No words yet, but you definitely have your own language and know how to use it.  You love to say “ba-ba-ba”, “da-da-da”, “brrrrr”, “tsh-tsh-tsh”, and sometimes just shriek for joy {or in irritation!}.  You’ve also recently started this thing where you get so excited that you sound as though you’re hyperventilating.  We can copy your noises, then you copy them back to us, and we copy them back to you… it’s pretty fun to interact with you in this way!

Sleep

You take a nap in the morning and a nap in the afternoon.  The morning nap is about an hour, hour and a half.  The afternoon nap is around 2 – 2 1/2 hours.  Come 7pm, you are ready for bed and then generally sleep straight through till 6/6:30am!  I kind of love that you’re an early bird.  It makes me get up and get going in the morning rather than sleeping in.

Other Bits and Pieces

This last month had a period of about 5 days where it was just you and me, little guy!  I was a bit nervous how it would play out, me being the sole care provider 24/7, but it went really well.  I had been praying that I would have an extra measure of patience for that time, and I did, thank the Lord.  We only had one “major” rough patch – it was a particularly hot day and you hadn’t slept well the night before or during your nap times – but overall, it made me more confident in my ability to care for you.

You’ve also had some more time with your daddy, as I’ve been working a bit longer at the hospital.  I’m still just doing odd shifts here and there.  You love hanging out with him.  As a matter of fact, today while I was at work the two of you caught the bus to the beach at Mission Bay.  This was your first time to sit in the sand at the beach {rather than just being walked on the beach in your pram} and you couldn’t get enough of it.  Your daddy had quite the time trying to keep an eye on you, the picnic rug, the video camera, and make sure that you weren’t eating too much sand.  I’m glad that he and you are able to hang out like that 🙂

And because you can only see so much in pictures, here’s a little video of you {about 2 minutes} showing how well you do at standing, pulling yourself up, and talking.

I love you, sweet baby boy!