Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Eight Months!

My handsome little X-man,

You are so big! I look at you napping on the floor and I can't believe you take up so much space. Last weekend I decided to reorganize how I was storing your clothes that were too small. They went into a space bag and as I was refolding them and putting in the bag, I just sat in awe at how you used to wear those clothes! They are so small! One of the outfits was my favorite because it was the warmest thing we had. It was a footed one-piece outfit; blue with a football and a baseball. You slept in that most every night. Yes it got washed often!

And then sometimes I have to remind myself how little you still are.

You are quite the scooter. You can get wherever you need to be by scooting along on your tummy...and a few good roll-overs for added quickness. Crawling won't be far behind, but you don't quite have the idea of getting your knees underneath you yet. You did start pushing with your feet a few days ago while you were playing on your tummy, but nothing really came of that.

One place you like to scoot to is straight to our shoes. I'm not sure why you have the desire to eat our shoes, but I guess since you don't quite understand what's going on, shoes are a perfectly acceptable thing to put in your mouth. Mamma doesn't think so!



You have started playing the licking game. You will lick everything! Our rug in the living room has squares all over it and sometimes I'll notice you with your face planted on the rug and your licking those squares. Sometimes you pick at them and try to pick the squares up. And when you're eating in the high chair, you'll occasionally turn your head and lick the chair padding. That's pretty funny!

You have started a new move that daddy calls the Elvis. It's really just a bounce and it has different variations. When you're on your tummy, you bob your torso/head up and down and your legs bob at the same time...kinda like a fish! And there's usually a little "AAAAh, AAAAh, AAAAh" sound that goes with that. When you're standing in our lap, it's more of a pelvic thrust that makes it difficult to hold you sometimes! When you're in your exersaucer, the bouncing causes quite a ruckus and makes the toys all bounce, too. You love all that noise. And when you're nursing, the bounce sometimes gets in the way of you eating...so you bounce some and then eat some. You are so excited that you've figured out how to move some new muscles!

And making noise, you are really good at that! You love to take your blocks and bang them together. And if I bang my block on the tub, you'll bang your block on the tub. You're very good at copying that! You also love to bang on the door into the bathroom. So, before your bath every evening, I make sure you have a little time to hit the door. You make such a cute, excited face when the door makes that fun noise! You look at me with this face that says, "Are you watching me, mamma? Can you see what I'm doing?" You seem to use that face alot lately!

And talking? Boy are you good at that! Most of the talking still consists of "mamamamamamamama" but there's the occasional "baba" in there. No sign of "da da" yet, but it'll come. Daddy's just glad that when you fuss, you say "mamama!" You've also learned a new voice and you use that quite often. It's a little more breathy and I'm sure it feels different. And the squealing! You're getting really good at that, too!



But where did you learn to be so dramatic? Just in the last few days you've started throwing your head back when you're upset. I try not to laugh, but your little tiny neck is so cute. And sometimes I can kiss on your neck while your head's back and it'll make you giggle.

I love your giggle!

You are eating so much these days! You get fruit at breakfast and a meat and veggie at dinner. You don't turn down food and I think if we kept feeding you, you'd just eat until you popped!

You love to look at yourself in the mirror. In the mornings when I get you out of bed, we go into your bathroom and you just grin at the baby grinning back at you. And I think you're trying to wave! Could be that you're just patting the air, but that's cute, too. When daddy or I pick you up and you're particularly excited about it, you'll pat us on the shoulder or the arm. Sometimes you'll even rub my arm and that puts a smile on my face!

You are the pro at sitting up. We've even put you in the shopping cart at Target. But we've only done this when all three of us go out. I'm just not sure you're big enough to sit up during a whole grocery trip especially since I have to look away from the cart to get things off the shelf. Of course, this is probably not the last time I'll be a little protective of you.

For lunch last weekend at our favorite sushi restaurant, you sat in the child's seat like a big boy! One of the waitresses even came by and tied a balloon to your seat (I kinda wished she would have asked first, but oh well). My little warning flag went off and I anxiously waited for you to pull the helium balloon down and try to eat it. You weren't too interested in the balloon. You were more interested in trying to get to the plate of sushi on the table and eating rice whenever we came at you with the chopsticks!

You really love when we put you on your back and help you pull up to sitting. And from there, you naturally want us to help you pull up to standing. And after that standing up, there's a fuss-a-thon if we put you back down! You've taken a few steps while you're standing up, but usually, it's one foot that comes down right on top of the other.



And I am so proud of what a good baby you are! I have strangers tell me how good you are when we're out for lunch or dinner. People are always commenting on how quiet you are and how happy you are. These kinds of things make daddy and me so proud! Let's hope that you're still in the "good" phase when we go to the country club with my parents this weekend.

Naps are still a challenge, but you're sleeping all night now. Ever since we dropped that 3:00 am nursing, you've slept until at least 6:00 without too much fussing during the night. We haven't had to get up to calm you down for several weeks now. We do, though, go check on you every night before we go to bed. Daddy and I gently walk into your room and one of us puts our hand on your belly or back (which ever is more accessible) to make sure all is well with your breating. Always is...but we're really just checking on you to get one last look at your cute self before we go to bed.

Naps are taken on the living room floor. They're at least 30 minutes and sometimes longer. That leaves me time to do a few housework things sometimes.



I love watching you learn new things and see how intently you study things. Sometimes still you even will be incredibly intrigued with your hand. And for several minutes, you'll wiggle your fingers all kinds of ways and just watch them to see what's happening.

I was looking at the pictures we have of you on the wall and one of the pictures is about two months old. The other 4 are a month old. You look so little in the older one. And then I noticed the hair in the newer pictures. Your hair makes you look like such the little boy.

And everyone still thinks you look just like your daddy. Your eyes are still a gorgeous blue and they're always big and bright! When people aren't commenting on how good you are, they're commenting on how big and beautiful your eyes are. Mamma's little charmer!

X-man, mamma and daddy love you to pieces!

Love,
mamma

2 comments:

SarahB said...

He is such a cutie! Always love your letters to him!

Scribbit said...

Okay about the licking game? When my daughter Grace was two she was into that and one day when the maintenance guy came to fix something in the apartment she ran to the door, opened it and licked his leg. He nearly freaked and acted like I'd taught her to do it. Nearly died.