Eight Months Old? Start Payin’ Rent!

Today Bean is eight months old.  Freakin’ crazy, right?  I can’t believe it.  Every time another month goes by, I have a mild panic attack.  Another month?  Another month?!?!  ANOTHER MONTH?!?!??!

Knock it off, Bean.

He is growing up so fast that it feels like he learns something new every single day.  But at the same time, Little Dude is TINY. He is still the smallest in his class.  And that includes a five month old baby girl.  He’s a petite casual kind of guy.  He still doesn’t weight 20 pounds, although my forearms would beg to differ.  But they’d be wrong.  He’s landing right about 18 pounds right now.  But he’s pretty tall.  I don’t know his exact height, but he’s taller than most of the babies in his class. Any weight he is gaining though is going straight to his belly.  He’s got a nice little pot belly that’s pokably perfect!  I love it.  Good for blubberin’.   His unique little proportions make it a little hard to dress him right now.  More often than not, he fits into 6 months clothes.  But the pants are usually a little short on him.  And sometimes the shirts are a little tight, but only around his belly.  I just bumped him up to 9 month clothes, but those are a little big on him.  I’d rather them be a little bigger though than too tight and uncomfortable, so we’ll just wait another month or so for him to grow into the 9 month clothes and I think we’ll be good to go.

He just cut his top two teeth this week, so now he has four.  His bottom two have been in since he was four or five months old.  He seems to get really fussy about 2 days before his teeth break through, but once they pop through he immediately goes back to his normal happy self – albeit a little more slobbery…  I give him Tylenol at night when his teeth are coming in, even if he hasn’t been fussy.  It helps him sleep and keeps him from laying there with nothing to distract him from the pain.  Teething is no fun, but Bean doesn’t seem to wallow in it for very long.

Developmentally, Bean is right on target.  He’s babbling and screeching like a crazy person.  His newest sound is a ga-ga-ga-ga sound and Chris and I are now each campaigning to make sure that his next sound is either ma-ma-ma-ma or da-da-da-da.  I think Chris might win.  We’ve heard him say the “d” once or twice and I know he’s about two seconds away from completing the phrase.  But I’m not giving up.

I birthed you, boy!  Ma-ma-ma-ma

His other big milestone news is that he has figured out how to get up on his hands and knees in a crawling position.  He doesn’t really know what to do after that part, but I’m sure it won’t take him long to figure it out.  He’ll throw a toy and then get up on all fours and reach for the toy.  Soon, he’ll figure out that if he rocks forward just a little bit, his whole world will change!  Its so exciting and yet terrifying at the same time!

Then just this morning, Bean was in his crib playing while I folded some clothes and put them away in his room.  I turned around and HE WAS STANDING UP IN HIS CRIB.  He had pulled himself up to a standing position and was smiling at me.  Just standing there.  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.  Time to drop that crib bed down to the lower setting, I guess.  And if he’s figured out how to do this in his crib, chances are he’ll figure out how to do it other places, too.  Which means cruising is coming!  I’m tired just thinking about it.

After all the advice you guys gave me about Bean’s binky, we’ve decided to let him keep it at night, when he naps, and in the car (that last one is for me more than for him!).  We’ll reassess around a year old, but hopefully it will just phase itself out over the next few months.

You all also gave me such support and encouragement about Bean’s lack of interest in solid foods and that really helped me to just chill out.  The most common comment that I received was that he’ll eat when he’s ready.  And you know what?  He has.  When I stopped trying to make him eat, he started being more interested in it (little booger).  I have figured out that he actually eats better when I don’t sit down and try to feed him.  If I put some food on his tray and then go about my business in the kitchen, he is more interested in the food.  Its a lot messier and its a lot slower, but he will actually eat a lot like that.  And we found his new favorite food – avocados!  I just chunk them up real small and he can feed himself.  He loves them!  I also have learned to use his love of Gerber Puffs to my advantage.  He loves them, so I put a piece of whatever I’m trying to get him to eat – like a peach or a pea or apples – behind the Puff.  Then, he thinks he’s getting a Puff, but he’s also getting a bite of something nutritional.  And after a couple bites, he’ll just take the food and not the Puff.  So, I’m being a little more creative and a LOT more patient and it seems to be going much better.

At eight months, Bean’s personality is shining!  Really, really shining!  He is in a great mood most of the time now and truly only cries when something is wrong.  He gets mad, he gets frustrated, he gets silly, he gets energetic.  He goes through so many more emotions now than ever before and its so fun to watch.  You can see him concentrating on something, like putting a block in a bucket, and he’ll scrunch his little face up and you can just SEE the frustration and impatience on his face.

Sorry, Beaner.  You get that from me.

I think my favorite part of Bean being 8 months old is how mobile he is.  Not on his own really yet, but he can pretty much go whenever we want to go.  When he was younger, we really had to think through and plan a lot more when we wanted to run errands or go out to eat.  Was it going to interfere with his nap?  Would it mess up his eating schedule?  Would he be cranky and pitch a fit?  But at this age, he is so much more portable.  We can really just get up and go almost whenever we want.  He sleeps when we’re out if he’s sleepy.  I throw a bottle of juice or formula and a Tupperware container of food in his diaper bag and he can eat wherever we are.  He can sit in high chairs in restaurants and shopping cars in stores.  He is happy and interested in what’s going on around him, so doing things with him right now is a lot of fun.

THIS is the reason we had a baby.  THIS is what we hoped it would be.  Just another little person to hang out with us.  Someone else to make things even more fun.  Eight months has flown by, but I have loved every single minute of it.

But, seriously.  No more growing, Bean.