8 Months

Henry is actually almost 9 months old (in 8 days) and I failed to post anything about 7 months, so I figured I should probably post something about Henry's 8 month accomplishments lest he feel neglected. So here we go, Henry started commando crawling around 5 1/2 months and started pulling up on things around 7 months. In his 8th month, this kid has become truly mobile and he is a quick little bugger. He is fully speed crawling now, pulling up on everything, including walls, and cruising around furniture.

Look how proud he is of himself. He is a very curious and likes to get into everything. He has managed to climb up two stairs so far. He has gotten into one of plants several times, eating dirt on one occasion. He loves to be chased. If you telling him you are going to get him, he starts crawling double-time and laughing hysterically. He also appears to have no fear. He will just let got of things and fall back on his bum. It is a little frightening.

We are going to have to up the auntie on the baby-proofing. I am not a huge fan of major baby proofing, but we are going to have to put up a few gates since we have two sets of stairs and put in something to block our fireplace, which is totally open. Other than that and putting in more outlet covers, I don't plan on doing much more. I figure they have to get used to living with things like plants and cupboards and I am not going to block them from anything and everything that could be considered a "danger." It worked with Ollie, so hopefully it will work with Henry.

Clearly, he is still adorable as ever. Those chubby cheeks just melt my heart. He is very sweet tempered, although he is getting considerably more vocal about his distaste for things, especially being confined to his highchair. Speaking of the highchair, he refuses to eat any pureed food, so I have given up. He will eat pretty much anything of the solid food variety, so we have just been giving him little mini bites of things that we are eating. The only challenge is finding things that are soft enough for him since he only has two teeth, which he also got this month. He is very interested in all the things we eat and sits there like a little bird with his mouth open when we are eating. He gets very upset if you don't share your food with him.

Henry has also started jibber-jabbing quite a bit this month. He makes lots of "ma-ma," "duh-duh" sounds. It really sounds like he is saying mama sometimes, but I think he is just babbling. He has also made a few signs, signing what looks like "more" and "milk. " He is very observant of his big brother and is constantly wanting to get into whatever Ollie is doing. He has also become very interested in the cat. Both Ollie and Hazel (cat) are very tolerant of Henry, which is good. He has recently started playing peek-a-boo with us. He will lift up a blankie to cover his face and the lower it and then giggle uncontrollably. Quite possibly the cutest thing ever!

He is a happy little bugger. We get lots of full body smiles and belly laughs from him. He is also super tickle-ish and it is fun to tickle-torture him for some of those baby giggles. Good-god, I love this kid!