Crazy Eight

Somewhere in the last eight months, Babycakes became an eight month old baby.  He did all kinds of new things during this month, and almost all of them were awesome things.  But let's get the unawesome things out of the way first:

On Christmas Eve, he decided to stay up for Santa, which resulted in him sleeping on me all night on the couch (this has not happened since he was a wee newborn).  Not quite the Christmas Eve I had envisioned, though at least Chopped was on (Chopped!  I heart you).  He did the same thing the following night, and the next morning, like the good parent I am, I finally noticed this big, crusty, open sore behind his left ear (think popped blister, aesthetically speaking).  Poor thing!  We put some stuff on it and he went back to sleeping in his bed.  (He has rather deep behind-the-ear folds...we take care to dry them thoroughly after baths now.)

A few days later, he caught a nasty cold, which stuck for the rest of our trip.  It was very sad to see him snuffling and coughing all day and not sleeping so much at night.  He was a trooper, all things considered, but was not his usual, happy self.  It was nice have my mom and sister around to give advice and tell me it's normal for sick babies to take monster naps.  

Fortunately colds go away and Mr. Happyface soon came back, just in time to pick up some new skills.  It began on New Years Day with pulling up on furniture.  It continued a few days later, when he woke up one day and started crawling in earnest.  About five minutes later he could go from lying down to sitting up on his own.  Then he started crawling up the stairs.  And then he started pulling up all over, and then he started cruising and now he'll walk (wobbly) a bit if you hold his hands.  It is amazing, exciting, fun and a bit baffling as well.  No need to do everything at once, you!

One of his very favorite places to stand.

(I should say now that this post is more wordy than usual, but hey, blame Baby for being so productive this month.)

Post-nap sleepy face.

He's gotten more into foods lately too.  I discovered that he will devour anything I put in the mesh feeder, but he's also taken more to eating with an old fashioned spoon. 

I always planned to give him chunks of food a la Baby Led Weaning, but I give him purees (of varying smoothness) more often.  Broccoli, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, carrots, applesauce--he eats them all up.  He also sometimes has chunks of banana, avocados and likes the occasional banana puffs if I stick it in his mouth.  His pincer grasp gets better all the time.   

He loves these perfect pushup things.

Talking face!

Anyway, he is a good, funny baby.  We have been working on some sleeping issues and the dry scalp (always), but on the whole, he is a happy, chatty little fellow.  He likes looking at books and banging things on the floor and picking up shoes. 

That TUMMY.  I can't get over it.

Also he makes faces like this:

He crawls onto my lap for hugs and follows me around and sometimes grabs my throat really hard (I try to not take it personally).  

Good baby.