Saturday, April 19, 2014

Eight Months

Things I want to remember about Asher at eight months. . .

- He has figured out how to crawl! He learned how to get up onto his knees a few weeks ago, then spent about a week rocking on his knees before he discovered how to move his knees forward. He's got it down pretty well now and is surprisingly fast when he gets going. So far he's not that interested in getting into things he shouldn't (not that we have all that much stuff for him to get into downstairs) but we do need to get a baby gate for our stairs and probably some of those outlet cover things.

- He's also learned how to hold his own bottle. He's not great at it yet, so most of the time I still sit with him and make sure he doesn't spew milk onto his face, but I think he'll have it down here pretty quickly, which will be nice. We've slowly been trying to get him to figure out the sippy cup, but so far he's only ever taken a few sips at a time before shoving it out of his mouth.  He's also become a very distracted eater. It's nearly impossible for him to finish a bottle or his food if we are anywhere else outside of our living room.

- He literally hates to be held. The second you go to pick him up, he'll turn around and try to wiggle out of our arms. It's actually a little sad that he's not more of a  cuddler, even though it is really nice that we don't have to rock him to sleep or have to deal with attachment issues at this point. Case in point: The other day he was sitting on the tile in our kitchen, fell over and hit the back of his head. He started crying pretty hard so I picked him up and tried to console him and five seconds after I picked him up, he started pushing me away and wanted to get down and play with his toys haha. I'm glad we have a fairly tough little guy, but it would be nice to get a cuddle out of him every once in a while!

- He's had a lot more to say lately. He does this funny dinosaur growl and then mixes in a shriek with it every so often.

- It's funny, he swipes at all of the toys that he plays with, so he typically swipes them around in a circle and then crawls after them. He also likes playing with any type of car, but he's really just interested in swiping at the wheels and making them spin. One of his favorite toys is a poof soccer ball that we have. He pushes it around and chases after it. He still loves watching other little kids.

- I don't know if it's because he's crawling now and wearing himself out more throughout the day, but his naps have been a lot longer this past week or so (well relatively to him, about 1.5 hrs instead of 1 hr), and I'll take it! If he keeps this up then I think I'm going to ditch the third nap altogether. He's still sleeping really well at night. I'm pretty positive that he still wakes up at some point in the early morning after six just to mess around in his crib, but he never cries and so we just get him up at seven and he is good to go.

- He's a really good eater and will take bites of anything that we are eating. He really likes chicken and still loves sweet potatoes and squash. We typically give him a few bites of whatever we are eating for dinner and he's never spit anything out, so hopefully he continues to be a good eater as he gets older! He's never really gone through that stage of wanting to shove every little thing into his mouth, so he doesn't really know what to do with food if we just set it on his high chair tray, but I'm sure he will figure it out at some point.

- He's pretty much weaned himself off of the bink. The only times we ever use it anymore is at church when we are trying to get him to nap (which is a freaking joke and I think I'm going to start bagging that crap altogether!) or when we are on long road trips in the car. Even then, he typically takes it out of his mouth and would rather play with it than suck on it. I'm hoping he continues to have a laid back personality because I will probably regret not being able to shove the bink in his mouth to calm him down when he's throwing a tantrum next year. Oh well, at least I won't have to battle him to get rid of it.

- He's started to stick his tongue out and thinks it's funny when Jared and I do it to him. He's also starting to laugh more at random little things. Before, he would only really laugh if he was deliriously tired and ready to go to sleep, but now we can get a few giggles out of him throughout the day. He does this funny thing where his eyes squint up every time he smiles really big, it's pretty cute.

- He's obsessed with grabbing at my hair, which is unfortunate because he has a surprisingly strong grip for such a little guy.

- He got his first two teeth in a couple of weeks ago, they are the bottom middle two teeth. He was a little bit more fussy than usual during the day for a few days before, he had one bad night where he didn't want to go to bed, and then he got this little rash on either side of his mouth. I want to remember that stuff for when he gets his next teeth in!

- During the past few days he's been starting to try and pull himself up into a standing position. He's not strong enough yet, but I have a feeling he will be grabbing onto the couch and tables here pretty soon.

- Overall, he's just a really happy and good baby!