Eight Months Old

Eight Months Old!

His stats (from BabyCenter):

Height: 29.5 inches (between 90 and 95th percentile)

Weight: 21.5 pounds (between 50 and 75th percentile)

Head Size: 19 inches (above 95th percentile)

What he is doing this month:

• Pulling up on everything! The entertainment center, trash can, coffee tables, firewood, ottoman, our legs, couches, Jumperoo, toilet, filing cabinets, cabinets/drawers with handles, and baby gate are his current favorites. Pretty much everything. As I mentioned a few days ago, he is learning to fall more gracefully.
  
  
• He is also starting to pick up his feet and slowly make his way around the coffee tables and couches. He reaches out to move from one object to another, too, and sometimes makes it, but more likely, falls. He is pretty brave! Also, pretty bruised. :)
  
  
• Talking: Possibly saying 'Hi!' When he greets us, the dogs, cashiers/strangers, himself in the mirror, etc. he sometimes has a kind of 'Hiyeeeeee' yell thing that he does. Also, during our sleep training, I am pretty sure I heard 'Mama' in his cries a few times (thankfully that only happened a few times).
  He doesn't make much noise, but he has started doing a tongue clicking thing that I read is an early form of communication, so I've been clicking back to him. We have conversations. :)
  
  
• Clothing: He has almost outgrown all of his 9 month clothes. He can still wear a few pairs of 6/9 month shorts, but we have mostly moved onto the 6-12 month and 12 month size.
  
  
• Eating: He has made his way through all of the 1st Gerber fruit and vegetable purees--he seems to like everything except peaches. He'll eat them, but he doesn't love them. I tried giving him homemade purees, but he puked on four different occasions, so I gave up. Any sort of chunk seems to gag him, so I decided we would hold off for now.
  Next week, I plan to offer more finger foods and steamed/mashed bits of 'real' food to see how that goes. I offered him soft, slimy bits of avocado the other day, but again, he gagged. No puke, but definite gagging.
  I just looked up the feeding guidelines for 8-10 months on BabyCenter, and it has definitely opened up since the 6-8 month guidelines. Soft cheese, eggs, meat, beans, bread, Cheerios...whoa! They list daily recommendations for dairy, grains, fruits, vegetables, and protein, so I need to start incorporating more than just fruit/vegetable/cereal that we've been doing thus far. We might even have to start a 'lunch' feeding to fit it all in. (Currently, we only do breakfast and dinner.)
  
  
• Sleeping: Like a champ. What a difference a few weeks can make. We are tweaking a few things (trying to make his afternoon nap longer/better, deciding what time to start his bedtime routine, deciding how much awake time he has in between naps, etc.), but overall he is sleeping very well now.
  
  
• Pooping: Not to be too gross, but the past few weeks he has finally started having 'human poops' instead of baby poops. Felt like it was note-worthy in case I ever look back at this ol' blog for poo-related research. :)
  
  
• Current Tooth Count: 3. There was a 4th last week, but it has since disappeared.

And finally, I made a crib rail guard this week to help protect the finish on his crib from his sharp little toophers! I am a Plain Jane and could not choose a fabric that I felt would 'go' with what we already have going on in the nursery, so I went with just a plain dark brown. I decided to make the ties in a fabric that complemented the dots/circles on his crib skirt, so I found an orange batik dotted/circle-y fabric and a green bubbly/circle-y fabric. Emily helped me decide to 'mix it up' and make each bow one of each color instead of alternating each green, orange, green, etc. like my ordered/plain mind tends to do... Anyway, here is the finished product--I am very happy with how it turned out!

Better hurry up with that sewing, Mama...

this crib rail is awfully tempting.

Thanks, Mama! This is awesome!

:)

Here is the tutorial I used, with a few minor exceptions.