8 Months

Oliver is 8 months!

He is sweet, silly and busy!

-He weighs 17lbs unofficially (just barely 17lbs!)

-He still wears size 3-6m in Gymboree (If anyone's counting, yes that is now six months of this size!) and Gap and 6m and 9m in Carter's.  His winter clothes are all 9m with a few 12m sprinkled in for the later months.

-He takes a short morning nap (an hour max) and a nice, long afternoon nap (2 hours).  He wakes up anywhere between 6:30 and 8:00am and is asleep by 7:30 or 8:00pm.  Our evening routine is dinner at 5:30 followed by clean-up/playtime, bath around 7:00 and stories, rock to sleep around 8:00.  He continues to sleep with us and that means I go to bed early as well.  I actually love being in bed that early.  I love snuggling with him and having lots of quiet time at night.  

-We're still going strong with cloth diapers.  When we first started solids, I liked bGs and GroVia, now I'm back to FuzziBunz.  We still use disposable at night and after some snafus with 7th Generation and not being able to find Earth's Best while traveling, we discovered Huggies Pure & Natural.  Now, they're my favorites.  They are super soft and feel like cotton inside.  He's in a size 3 with lots of room.  We could probably swing a 2 in Huggies, but I fear we'd be stuck with extras so 3s it is.

-It's also worth mentioning that sometimes, I cheat and use disposable because of his clothes... 3-6m still fits as long as he's in disposable.  In cloth, they start to pull just enough to look not so fitting.  I also use disposable when we leave the house just because I have a very sensitive sense of smell am lazy and... did I mention he eats solids now?

-He has two bottom teeth that took a good three weeks to finally come through and he has two top teeth that are just below the gum.  At 8 months exactly (yesterday) I noticed his gum had opened beneath one tooth so we'll probably have four teeth soon.

-Nola is Oliver's bestest friend.  He loves to watch her and she is surprisingly tolerant of him.

-At 7 months he started to 'inch worm' on his belly to move around, now he's figured out how to actually crawl without his belly touching the floor.  He just started this a day or so ago (basically right at the 8 month mark) so he's still somewhat easy and in one place.  I fear that will all change by the end of the week.  Note to self: use the jumper.  Do not place baby on the floor just in case he practices crawling. :P

-He has been standing for months upon months.  Since he was born really.  So it was no surprise to us that he'd figure out how to pull himself up sooner than later.  He did this before he figured out crawling.  For a while I thought he might not even crawl, but he has zero balance so I'm no longer in that camp.

-He continues to nurse well.  We introduced solids last month (more on that later) and he nurses the same amount as before.  His schedule is, wake up-nurse, 11a nurse, early-afternoon-before-nap nurse, wake-up-from-nap nurse, quick nurse before dinner, 5:30 solids, stories-rock-to-sleep-before-bed nurse.  He's up a couple times at night some, but doesn't nurse long if you can even consider it nursing.  So far, the teeth have been okay.  I fear the worst with the top two, but I remain positive.  He recently became interested in what nursing was all about and decided to investigate with his hands, HILARIOUS.  Especially when he squirts himself in the face.  Enter lots of laughing from both of us (see silly boy below).

(This picture is for those of you who think he's always smiling, ha!)

-Solids are going well.  He pretty much eats just about anything now.  I'll write another post just on solids because I've had a lot of people ask me about that.  He loves to feed himself and it's become a challenge for us to eat healthier so we're all eating the same thing.  I refuse to make multiple dinners, it's just not my style.

-Did I mention he is silly?  Really silly.  I can make him laugh simply by laughing and he giggles before breaking out a full on belly laugh.  It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!

-He's saying 'ma ma ma ma ma' and 'da da da da da.'  He also says something that sounds like 'byebyebye' and 'ba ba ba ba.'  At least, those are the latest.  A lot of times it sounds like he says 'mom' very clearly.  Same for 'dad.'  Even though it's not the case, we still find it enjoyable.

-Over the weekend we moved the crib down.  Mr. TopHeavy(BigBrain) was pulling up and leaning.  Sigh.  Not that he spends a lot of time in the crib, but I didn't want to feel like I couldn't use it if I wanted to, so we took it apart and lowered the mattress.  It was delightful.

-At 8 months, I've finally accepted that he's not a tiny baby anymore.  I was sad to see his teeth; sad to see him crawl.  I mourned the loss of my newborn.  Despite that, I've loved each new month and his personality, it was just sad that he was growing so fast.  I'm over the newborn thing now.  I still miss it - I miss him being new, and tiny, and floppy... but I love who he is and have so much fun with him!  He's big enough that we can take him running and not worry about his neck; big enough to sit in the shopping cart; big enough to toss in the air and catch as we hear giant belly laughs... he plays games, he finds humor, he has likes and dislikes, and best of all, he loves.  Oh how he loves.  (Shout out!  David Crowder Band lyric ;))  He is so affectionate and I love how he loves us.  So here's to growing up and finding fun in the journey.  I almost wrote 'bring on month 9' but I don't want to get too ahead of myself...it will basically be here tomorrow so for now, we will enjoy every bit of month eight.