Eight Months Old

Ace is eight months old today. He's getting bigger and most notably TALLER! every day (or so it seems.) He now almost hits his head under our dining room table and just last week that wasn't possible.

Firsts for Ace's 8th month: His first time out on the deck in the warm sun. His first Easter, his new big-boy car seat, his first trip to see the falls (and that all happened in one day!) Swim Lessons. His first visit to see the Cherry Blossoms.

Developmentally, Ace is just honing the skills he learned in his 7th month of life. He's standing everywhere still and gaining a far greater appreciation for gravity. He isn't falling nearly as much and is discovering safer ways to descend to the ground rather than a full on face plant. He is more and more starting to let go of furniture he is holding and standing for a second or two before grabbing back on or descending to the floor. I'm sure by the 9 month post he will be walking all over the place though!

On the teeth front, Ace this past week started to work on his second tooth. Much to the dismay of mommy that second tooth is on the top. So while we are excited he is on his way with the solid food muchers, mommy is less excited to be having to deal with a now painful vice grip that nature and Ace has decided to bless us with. It isn't all the way though yet and this tooth he's having a harder time than the first. His nose is a faucet and the fever is often. Making two nights ago a nearly non-existent night of sleep for the whole family. Needless to say, we will be glad when this one makes it in and will (hopefully) welcome a break before the next one makes it's appearance.

Growth wise, we can only guess. Ace doesn't have to see the pediatrician until his 9th month and in that visit he won't need any shots! It's his freebie month. I'm sure he is excited about that. :) So as far as how tall he is or how much he weighs it's all guess work at this point. I'd say he's close to 29" tall (yes he's vertical now, so I no longer consider measurements in length) and between 18-20lbs. Just this last week he has also seemed to be chunking up. Perhaps it's all the exercises he's been getting... yes it's muscle not fat ;-).

Yes, during Ace's 8th month of life, him and I joined Mommy & Me swim classes... and so far he is loving it. There is the first swim lesson here and the second one with a video, here. He loves the water. He enjoys bath time and he also really enjoys being in the pool, which is heated to roughly 90' so mommy also enjoys it. He has about 7 other babies in the class with him ranging from 4 months to 9 months old and it is a nice time for him to interact with the other kids.

Ace enjoyed hunting for eggs this Easter, the video can be seen here. We had a great time enjoying all the festivities of the Easter day with him and showing him the falls in the evening. It was a lot of fun.

In other areas, we regressed a bit. He did so well with solid food when we first introduced him to it, then he got sick, and then he wanted nothing to do with it. So after trying it other people's ways for so long "keep trying" "start back with rice cereal again" "just feed it to him" I decided to go with my gut instinct and stop feeding him the solids all together. Whaaa? Yes, I stopped, almost three weeks ago. I decided that I didn't want him to hate it when he was no longer showing ANY interest in it. So I decided to start from scratch. Wait about a month and then re-introduce the whole subject. So we're starting today. We're starting with breast milk with a side of rice cereal aka reallly reallly milked-down cereal and we'll go from there and hope he enjoys it again like he did way back when.

Ace is a smart boy and during the day enjoys spending time learning eating flash cards, and also learning sizes. Pretty sure his consistency is sheer luck but he's doing really well with "big" and "little" objects and handing me the one that I ask for. We have also cycled some of the "baby" toys out to more learning based toys. Our little man is growing up. I'm sure there are many other things that I've missed to put in this post, but on a daily existence Ace is healthy, happy, and thriving. He still loves the kitties and has the battle wounds to show for it. EVERYWHERE!!! And is starting to really work on his expressions more and more (when he feels like it.)