Here we are at 8 months! Aaron’s weights and measures are as follows:
- Height: 30 inches
- Weight: 19 pounds, 4.5 ounces
- Head: 19 inches
I can hardly believe it, but I spent the other weekend packing away most of Aaron’s 6 month sized clothing since he’s wearing the 9 month sized stuff every day. I got out the next size up, the 12 month stuff. I pull these outfits out and they look so long, until I hold them up against Aaron and see that he really doesn’t have that much further to go until they fit. Good lord, he is so tall! All the little baby stuff is gone. I was sad to see it go, and to remember the excitement of him wearing those things. This all happens so fast.
The big new development this month is crawling! Life is really about to change in our house with this one. Aaron has figured out how to get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. You can see the wheels turning in his head. He just KNOWS that he’s supposed to do something with this! He’s tried hopping on his back end to move forward. He’s beginning to get the hang of moving one knee forward in conjunction with the appropriate arm. He can now do the army crawl, rolling and wiggling to get to where he wants to go. I turn my head away for one second, and he’s off his play mat and somewhere on the floor I wouldn’t expect. Oh my lord, I need to baby proof my house! I went to Babies R’ Us the other day to get a bunch of stuff, and I need to clean out our things from pretty much everywhere. It is so exciting to see him learn this new skill, yet there is a small sense of dread over what it means. We will figure it all out though!
Videos of Aaron's first attempts at crawling:
The weather has really warmed up in Colorado, which means we get a lot more outside time and fresh air, which is so much fun to do with Aaron. We live down the street from a ranch made up to look like Colorado during the time when the settlers were first here. There are all kinds of farm animals that live there, and we’ve had so much fun walking through to show them all to Aaron. His favorites are the chickens. He giggles at them as they bob their heads and cluck around the coop. They have three new baby chicks that are so cute. They also have two new 5 week old piglets. One is quite vocal, and Aaron laughs at their oinking noises. We walk through and sing “Old McDonald” to him as we come across the animals. My new favorite thing is to take him there around naptime. He’ll fall asleep in his stroller, and I’ll roll him over to one of the park benches in the shade. He sleeps in the warm breeze, and I sit and read my book until he wakes up. Then we proceed on through the ranch to visit any of the animals we may have missed.
Aaron at the ranch:
Aaron continues to grow teeth like you wouldn’t believe. His four front teeth have come in, as well as his two bottom ones that he’s had for a while now. I just peeked the other day, and I see four more that are now coming in. Two are up on top, and then the other two are coming in on the bottom. My acupuncturist has a remedy she prescribes called Tender Teeth that I’ve found works amazingly well. Aaron had a week where he was fussy and didn’t sleep as his two front teeth were breaking through. As soon as I started giving him the Tender Teeth, he was back to his old self, and sleeping so much better. I am grateful to have found this stuff, though it is a bit pricy at $20 a bottle. I’ll just use it as he needs it I guess.
We have kept up with trying to feed Aaron solid foods, but it continues to be a challenge, and I feel so guilty a lot of the time about it. We’ve been at this for two months now, and he still really doesn’t have much interest in eating solids. We can get a few spoonfuls in him a night, but that’s about it. He turns his head, clamps his mouth shut, whines and gets annoyed, and spits out what we manage to sneak into his mouth. Seems like all the books say that at this point he should be getting multiple feedings a day and he should be eating a lot – way more than his few bites of food. He still breastfeeds like a champ, and he is growing, so do I worry? Is he just not ready? Am I doing it wrong? After Noah, food is definitely where I feel the most anxious and self-conscious. He has been such a great eater since he was born, thank God, but on this issue I am really struggling. Ideas or suggestions would be most welcome if you have any.
I hate to even talk about sleep since I feel like it takes so little to get us derailed and I suddenly haven’t slept in a week. To be honest, he has had more and more nights where he has slept through the night. A round of teething will kick up and he’ll be up a lot in the night, but then we will have stretches of time where we put him down and don’t see him until morning. I’ve been trying to start the process of putting him to bed between 7-8pm. I still nurse him to sleep. He falls into a light sleep pretty quickly, but then it takes longer, maybe an hour or so, to get him to deep sleep where I can lay him in his crib. I don’t mind. I sit quietly with him and read my book until he’s ready. I love feeling him snuggled up next to me. It’s pretty peaceful time together. He is such a sweetie, and I love to look at him and just enjoy him during this time. I wonder how we will do this when he’s older, and I can no longer nurse him down. How am I teaching him to go to bed on his own? I’m not. But, I try to take each day as it comes, and this works for now. Sleep has become such a precious commodity since he was born. It is a matter of survival to just do what works. We’ll figure out how to get him down on his own later I guess.
Finally, I wanted to post some additional pictures of my little guy. When he was 6 months old, I had pictures taken of him by my favorite photographer, Chrisie at Blue Columbine Photography. Love, love, LOVE how they turned out!
