8 month update

So little one is now 8 months old. Wow, time sure does fly!

He is now 23.5 lbs & his length & head circumference are exactly the same as last month.

When I wrote the last blog I remember stating that he was still taking 4-5 bottles/day. Immediately after writing that he never took 5 bottles in a day again. He even dropped to 3 bottles some days. He is now currently taking 3 bottles of formula, one with each meal & he also has a bottle of juice once each day.

He is still trying to crawl. He now does this jumping thing while he's sitting up & has learned how to scoot himself around quite quickly this way. He does stand independently in both the walker & the jumper. And in my lap he will pull himself to standing, just holding lightly to my blouse. He doesn't seem to realize just how strong he actually is.

Just this past week he has started becoming fearful of things, which is odd. He is very afraid of the vacuum cleaner, daddy's power drill, & the hose (when it's spraying water). I recall being a very afraid child, but I had always assumed there was some explanation for it that I couldn't recall. Perhaps there wasn't & perhaps little one is going to follow in my footsteps. I shall have to look into how to best deal with this.

He also has 2 bottom teeth coming in. It's been hurting him quite a bit. I feel really bad for him. He was being really cranky & then I started using orajel after each meal. He's been a little better, except at night. He wakes quite often crying in pain. Today I went out & bought the stronger nighttime orajel for babies. I put some on when I put him to bed for the night--we shall see how well it works. If he does wake I have to remember to reapply instead of stuffing a pacifier in his mouth, which is hard for me to remember when I'm so sleepy & confused.

He is still wearing size 12 month clothes. We somehow ended up with way too many 12 month clothes, so I guess it's good that we are getting lots of use out of them. I am planning to keep him in them until he absolutely can't fit in them anymore. I have a few 18 month clothes & a few 24 month clothes. I was already thinking on my own & then someone suggested it as well, so now I'm really gonna do it: to skip a size each time we buy clothes, so they last twice as long. Because if I keep in a size until they absolutely won't fit anymore the next size you move him into isn't even a little bit big on him, & you don't get much use out of them. So I'll probably pool together the 18 month & 24 month clothes for now & then move to 2T & skip 3T, moving right to 4T. I'm just not sure if that will work with pants....the bigger size might be too long for him.

For Christmas we got him a sweatshirt, a swing for outside, hand puppets, & a learning station thing that teaches alphabet, numbers, colors, etc in both English & SPANISH. I was totally sold when hubby told me it did Spanish too. I definitely want him to grow up knowing Spanish. And it's not just because I married into a hispanic family, I think it's just very necessary in Southern California now. It will definitely be helpful in any job he'll ever have. And I think it's much easier to learn it growing up than to try to learn it later on. I want him to also learn how to read & write Spanish. I've known a lot of people who grew up with Spanish speaking families & they can speak & understand spoken Spanish, but they cannot read or write it. So the Spanish Your Baby Can Read DVD will help with that & I have several bilingual books for him too.

That's all the updates I can think of right now.............