8 months old

Well baby boy, you are 8 months old today. This borders on a certain level of craziness. Occasionally you'll do something or wear something that makes you seem more like a little boy than a baby. Stop that! Stop growing so fast! I try hard to savor every day with you but it's still not enough. I don't think I'll ever feel like I've had enough Bennett!

Some things about you at 8 months old:

• You have become a ham for the camera. After a couple months of going solemn whenever you noticed the camera, you now grin like a cheeseball and pose. It makes it much easier to get pictures of you!
• You have recently become very clingy to us, Mommy especially. You don't mind playing on your own but you like to know we're there. Whenever we walk out of your line of sight you start to cry then need to be reassured once we come back.
• You throw temper tantrums whenever I put you down for a nap. No matter how tired you are, you don't nap readily. As soon as I lay you down in the crib you realize what's happening and you'll throw a full-body tantrum by beating your arms and legs up and down a few times and bursting into an angry cry. It doesn't last long, you settle down quickly, you just like to make sure we know your opinion of what's happening.
• We've stopped swaddling you for bed. I still swaddle you for most naps, but for the past 10 days we haven't swaddled you for bedtime. This is a pretty big step because we've tried this a few times before, but you could never settle down to sleep because your arms would jerk and wake you up and agitate you. A couple factors went into this decision to stop swaddling. Last weekend we were in California for Aunt Kavita's wedding and you ended up sleeping in our bed all 3 nights because after being passed around all day you just wanted to snuggle with Mommy all night. So we didn't swaddle you, either I had an arm around you holding you close or you were just comfortably settled between Mommy and Daddy. Then when we got home the weather was warm enough that we were worried you'd get too hot if we swaddled you, and since you did okay in CA we decided to just put you down, and you did great! We are definitely not opposed to swaddling you for bed again if we decide that would provide better sleep, but for now it doesn't seem to affect you either positively or negatively so we'll leave it be for now. Plus we'll have to buy a bigger swaddle wrap in a lighter material for this new warmer weather since the only one that fits right now is a thick fleece. I do still swaddle you in a light blanket for your daytime naps because you have a harder time settling down when it's light outside and so the swaddling seems to help.
• You've developed a habit of sharing binkies. You've now tried pulling binkies out of both Ellie and Jaxon's mouths and putting it in your own. You also have tried to share your own binky with your parents and Aunt Kav and Ish (you all of a sudden will thrust your binky at our mouth, it's very cute also we usually get taken by surprise and end up with a wet cheek). I also have a new game with you that you think is funny - I'll put the handle of your binky in my mouth and pretend to be sucking on it, and when you notice you'll grin and then pull it out of my mouth and immediately put it in your own.
• You can now reach to touch your head. You've seemed confused the few times you've touched the top of your head at this new skill.
• We think you will start to roll over soon (you're very behind in this skill, but you can sit up fine and we know you could roll over if you wanted, we think you just see no need to yet). When we put you on the changing table recently you have started to arch your back and kind of turn on your side trying to reach the things on the table behind your head. I'm sure if we practiced this with you more you'd pick it up in no time, but we're in no hurry to have you be mobile.
• You also are much more daring in reaching for things when you are sitting up. Most of the time you just sit and complain once all your toys are out of reach, but a few times now you've bravely lunged to reach a toy and have ended up on your belly or side. Sometimes you cry at this but sometimes you are fine with it.
• When you topple over you are usually fine, but you will make a fuss and cry about it if people are watching so that you get the attention. We keep trying to act like the falling is no big deal so that you will learn to handle the inevitable bumps and falls that are coming as you get more mobile.
• You took your first topple off the couch yesterday. You were sitting up playing and then we're not sure what happened - you must have tried to look at/reach a toy on the floor or something because all of a sudden you somersaulted and landed on the floor. You handled it like a champ though - you only cried for a minute out of fright but were giggling again in just a few moments once I picked you up.
• You have signed "milk" several times now. At 6 months we started doing a little bit of baby sign with you and "milk" is the only sign you have done back. You don't quite understand what it means though because you have done it to several people, not just Mommy, and sometimes you don't even want milk. So right now it's more just imitation or remembering this new skill that has people offering you things.
• You have finally figured out how to work your pull-frog that hangs on your carseat. You pull on the legs to stretch the frog out and then it vibrates its way back up the string. You're very pleased with yourself and our last few car rides I have spent the entire trip hearing "whip! vrrrrr. whip! vrrrrrr"
• You have now eaten quite a few different Stage 1 baby foods. You have tried green beans, peas, yellow squash, butternut squash, carrots, bananas, applesauce, and pears. So far green beans and squash are your favorite. You ate both of those with pleasure from the first bite. You don't care much for the fruit although you did finally decide you liked the applesauce about halfway through. Right now you usually have 1 serving of rice cereal and 1 small jar of baby food each day, although I have just started giving you an additional serving of one of them each day.
• We had a scary experience on the plane ride home from California. I let you suck on an animal cracker because you were being a handful and I couldn't get you to settle down any other way, and Daddy was sleeping. I've let you suck on a vanilla wafer once before without any problem, you gummed the edges until they were nice and soggy. The animal cracker must have been too brittle and dense to gum up though, because after a few minutes you all of a sudden started choking and couldn't breathe. I immediately did a finger-sweep of your throat and pulled out a tiny piece of cracker that was stuck, and you immediately started coughing so I knew that had worked, and then you coughed so hard that you threw up all over me. I didn't care though because I had been so scared in those few moments! I am just very thankful that I was blessed to be able to react immediately before things got any worse. Then I took you into the bathroom and cried for a little bit because I was so shaken up. :)
• You sleep awful these days, you little stinker! You slept through the night for about 6 weeks starting from 5 months, but you have not slept through the night even one time since you turned about 6 1/2 months old. When this first started we thought maybe you were ready for solids because we had learned that abnormal awakening at this age was usually an indicator of that, so we started solids. It seemed to be helping and one night only a few days after starting solids you almost slept through the night. But since then you have been waking up several times a night. We also had a couple weeks where you struggled with night terrors but we seem to have overcome that after trying a few different things. We have no idea why you're not sleeping better but hopefully things will settle back down soon, because Mommy needs sleep!