8 months old

Our baby is growing quickly.  Every time I sit down to write about his past month, I can’t believe that another month has already passed!  Guess this is our new reality!?

Thomas is still a huge mover.  He is loving his new found ability to get to the places and things he wants.  He will cruise on the furniture over to see Stella or reach up on a shelf for something he shouldn’t have.  A few weeks ago he put one of his standing toys on the hardwood and he was OFF….since then he has been walking all over the place.  He is able to steer and get himself unstuck if he gets hung up on an obstacle.   He is also moving between his standing toys and other “tall things.” Thomas conquered “Mount Everest,” or our stairs as well.  He will start at the bottom and crawl all the way to the top with a huge smile on his face.  Hopefully this does not give his daddy too many adventurous ideas!  Bouncing, jumping up, and riding the “horse” on the big ball are also daily favorites.  So far with all his moving, it has been a pretty smooth transition, knock on wood it continues, and we don’t have any major bumps or bruises.

Thomas loves digging in his toy boxes to find the toy he wants to take out and play with.  Some of his current favorites are his ball, drum stick, and blocks.  He also has been enjoying giving Stella her bones, taking showers with Mike or I, helping to load and unload the dishwasher, and playing with anything he finds on the floor.  His personality is really starting to shine.  This part is hard for me to explain, but he is really a silly funny baby.  It will be fun to watch him continue to “come out.”

A HUGE thing in our world is that Thomas is officially off of ALL his reflux medications…Wahoooey :-)  We started last Friday by taking away his morning dose of Prevacid.  He did great, then we took away his morning dose of Axid, he continued to do well.  So we decided to go for it.  On Thanksgiving night we didn’t give him any medicine and haven’t since…it went well so we are done!   This is also important when it comes to the following paragraph.  With his reflux resolving, we should be able to start to see some other changes in his eating.   He should eat more and sleep more peacefully.  The combination of the two make me think we might be closer to some longer longer stretches of sleep?!  If not then we will keep on keeping on, which leads us to SLEEP.

On a good night Thomas is going to bed at 7 p.m. and then waking up to eat at 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.  He then wakes up for the day about 6:30 to have playtime with his daddy.   On a not so good night we might be up every 2 or 3 hours, sometimes to eat, sometimes just to make sure we didn’t take off to the mountains.   He has dropped his mini morning nap and now will take a nap in the morning and afternoon.   He still has days where he sleeps great in his crib and days where he wants to be held and in bed with us.   We don’t blame him, as Mike calls our bed “God’s pudding.”   If he is in our bed he can lay down in between Mike and I and fall asleep without nursing or crying.   Which is a pretty huge accomplishment in our world.   

Eating continues to be a day by day thing.  Sometimes he eats a ton (half a banana or 1/4 of an avocado) then other days he will take only a bite or two.  The stinker does way better when he finds stuff on the floor or when we are out to eat.   We are pretty sure he is out on most purees, or I should say things we try to feed him off of a spoon!?  He likes to try to do the spoon himself and also is learning how to grab food with his fingers and about half makes it to his mouth.   Who thought he might have a stubborn personality?!   As we come up on the year mark, he should start to wean from breastfeeding and move to more solid foods. If he does not decide to do this on his own in the next couple of months we will continue to gently encourage him to do so.   All in all, he is doing what he should be and is getting his calories from milk and exploring the tastes and textures of new foods.   Soft finger foods are his new favorite as are puffs.  He has also tried peas, blueberries, sweet potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, apples, pumpkin, brown rice, turkey, and chicken.   Right now if I had to list favorites it would be banana, puffs, avocado, and carrots. 

Thomas’ sweet little voice is music to my ears.  It is so so so fun for me to hear him developing his voice.  I am even picking up the different words that he is attempting to say.  My prediction is that his first word might not be “mama” or “dada” but something for “Tucker,” “Stella,” or “Itzy.”   He now will string together a few consonants sounds (g, c/k, b, m, and d).   He will also sign when he is “all done” even if we don’t want him to.   He will follow some of our directions like “give Stella the bone,” “come here,” and “give to mommy/daddy.”  We are still working on “NO” for dangerous things, but right now he just laughs at Mike or I and thinks we are being really funny.

The car seat continues to be a nightmare.  I wish I could say that his new car seat is helping, but it is not.   If someone is in the back with him he can hold it together a little longer.  Usually we have a 10 minute grace period before he really starts to get MAD.   This is the one area that I wish I could figure out something to help the poor little guy, and myself for that matter.  It is excruciating to sit in the front seat and drive while he is losing it in the back seat.   If we have a longer drive, he will eventually cry himself to a shutdown and sleep.  So we either make short trips or we try to schedule driving around his naps if we have to go alone.

On the 24th he had a quick visit for his DTaP shot and he weight 18 lbs 6 oz.   Our next appointment is his 9 month well baby at the end of December.