Eight Months Old

Rowan at eight months is exponentially harder to take pictures of than any other age thus far. You can not sit still and when you do you are not very happy about it. So you just went crazy for your photo shoot this weekend and I captured on camera what I could on the chair and then released you to the floor :) Love you Miss Squirmy

 

-We are feeding you 2 "meals" a day now, lunch and dinner. You have eaten up to 3 cubes of food and then a bowl of oatmeal. Sometimes you could probably eat more but we make you wait to nurse and fill up on milk. Food is hit or miss these days. You hate being strapped into your high chair and fight us crying most times. But then once we start giving you food you are fine and not bothered by being in there. The second round of baby food purees we made had a carrot/apple/zucchini blend, peas, peas/apples/edamame, squash, more sweet potatoes and apples. We started giving you oatmeal and a fruit mixed in which you eat much better than regular oatmeal. You still love your fruit pouch and stars. You let us spoon feed you well, no grabbing the spoon or spitting food at us. If you don't like something or are all done you turn your face and wipe it on the cloth part of the high chair or drop it on the floor. You can take water out of your sippy cup without the no-spill feature. And the least favorite part of the eating experience is getting your face wiped off. So much drama for a clean face.

 

-Diaper and cloth sizes have stayed the same. You aren't seeming much bigger to me but you definitely have more hair. It is coming in thicker and getting so long it hangs in your eyes if we don't have a clip in.

- You still let us put headbands and clips in your hair. You only reached for a headband once. We were driving in the car and you got quiet. I looked back and you had pulled the headband down and out from your face with both hands and were staring at it. Then you lost your grip on it and it recoiled snapping you in the face. I felt so bad because we were on the highway and I couldn't console you. You have not touched a hair accessory since.

 

 

-You have started grabbing your hair though, especially when you nurse. You grab a lock of it and tug really hard. I have no clue why you do this when it clearly doesn't feel good. You also like batting at my face and clawing my mouth while feeding. I usually give you a blanket to hold and play with so you don't do any of the above mentioned things.

 -You have a habit of chewing on your blanket and on your pillows in your chair after you nurse. You can easily get distracted during nursing too by the blanket and start sucking on it. You put it in your mouth and then pull hard while you are gripping it in your gums. If I were to guess I would say your gums are bothering you and maybe you're working on a tooth??

-You are pulling up on everything and crawling from room to room. Usually you like to stay in whatever room we are in but sometimes you get adventurous and head off if you see a toy. You have taken a few side steps while standing but that usually leads to you falling.

-You have learned to lower yourself down to the floor from a stand. You squat really slow and then plop on your bottom. Your thighs have got to have some serious muscle.

-You like 5 little monkeys, the itsy bitsy spider, and patty cake when it comes to songs. These will usually hold your attention while we change your diaper fast. You HATE getting your diaper changed and cry like we are torturing you as soon as we lay you down on the changing table.

-You love to clap and when we encourage you to clap clap clap you get all smiley. Dad also plays a game with you where he says squeak every time you hit Sophie on the floor and she makes a noise. You think this is funny as well.

-Another favorite game of yours is when we hid a ball or toy under your stacking cups and then mix them up. You crawl after them and lift them one by one until you find the toy. Then you get really proud of yourself. Peak a boo is also fun to play.

 

 

-You have been waking yourself up now when you poop. This is annoying because your naps get cut in half or you wake up way too early in the morning when it happens. You stand in your bed holding the rails crying until we come change you and then you won't lay back down to sleep. This stage of pooping btw is making cloth diapers no fun. Your dad always does a happy dance when you poop in your paper overnight diaper and we can throw it away.

-Your bedtime routine now consists of dad reading you books for 15 min or so to calm you down while I heat up a bottle and pick up your mess of toys. Then I go in and nurse you, top you off with a bottle and put you to bed. Lately you have been pushing the bottle away and only wanting to nurse. That is endearing and all but my supply can't keep up with the amount you want to take at night. Refusing a bottle normally means an early wake time.

-Speaking of wake time, you really have mixed things up on that front. For awhile now you will wake anywhere from 4am to 6am. You used to wake sometime in the 6:00 hour so I was disappointed when you started waking earlier. Some mornings you nurse at 4 or 5 then go back to sleep for a couple more hours. Other times you have woken up at 5 or 6 and just been up after eating. Those are long days. I thought maybe this was a growth spurt and you needed to nurse but now that it has lasted this long I wonder if we just reinforced a bad habit.

 

-You have dropped a nap officially and take one morning nap and one afternoon nap. Ideally 9-11 and 2-4. More realistically you take one of these 2 hr naps and a 45-75 min nap the other time. Some days though you boycott all together. It is hard to get you in a routine that you can expect because you now wake up at a random time each day. The only sleeping time that has remained consistent is 7pm bedtime. As long as you are happy and not fighting naps I don't feel bad about having no set structure but on days that you cry and fight sleep I do feel slightly guilty.

-You have mastered touch and feel books now. We have a bunch we have checked out from the library and you have learned where the textured objects are on each page. You wait while I read the sentence on the page and then you pet or scratch the object. I showed you all the textures and made your hand touch them the first day we brought the books home and now you do it by yourself.

 

-You love my phone now because it has a picture of you as the background. If you see it you will crawl across the room to pick it up. Then I click the button to turn the screen on and you smile and laugh and get all excited to see your face pop up.

-You love to wave at yourself in the mirror and now at us. If we make a waving motion, more likely than not, you copy us.

Love you Rowan McKinley!