8 Months

Joshua has had another big month.  He’s very mobile now and is sleeping like a champ, causing Mommy and Daddy to stay on their toes in the day and to finally be able to rest up at night.  He loves to laugh at older kids and hearing his laugh makes my heart smile.

Doing laundry in Elijah’s shirt!

He started crawling in the week after turning 7 months old and has recently started pulling up.  He gets overly confident and lets go of what he’s holding onto.  Instead of bending at the waist or knees to fall, he falls over like a tree.  I feel like if he could talk he’d call, “timber!”.  He’s mobile enough that he’s officially been moved out of the “babies” room at church and has entered the world of “crawlers”.  I figured this would happen when he followed me out of the room one Sunday.

When you are mobile it means you can go wherever you want, including to use the table as a jungle gym!

While Joshua’s doing really great with his gross motor skills, his fine motor skills need some work.  When he eats, he grasps the food by the handfull, then drops it as he opens his mouth to shove it in.  It’s pretty entertaining to watch.  In my not-so-vast parenting experience babies tend to develop in leaps in bounds in one area while seeming to be stagnant or regress in others, then the area of growth changes, so likely he’ll progress in this area next.

Helping Mommy clean out closets and pack away the clothes he’s outgrown.

Joshua has finally decided that eating solids isn’t such a bad thing and he’s gone from refusing to open his mouth to crying for more.  He’s a bit spoiled because when it comes to eating table food he fusses until I put more in his mouth.  I guess if I dropped most of what I was trying to feed myself I’d prefer someone else feed me, too!

Feed me!

We are sleeping through the night!  And napping well!  After a visit to the doctor to be sure there was no physical reason for the night waking and when the older boys were visiting Granny and Papa and Jacob was working late, Mommy was mean and let Joshua cry it out just a little bit.  He’s a smart baby, though, and he quickly figured it out and started sleeping well.  Why, oh why, didn’t we do that long ago?

Everyone is just a bit happier now that I’m sleeping well.

Joshua is such a sweet little guy and he couldn’t be more loved.  We can’t believe he’s developing so quickly.  I feel like he’s gone from such tiny baby to an aspiring toddler overnight.  While it’s exciting to see glimpses of my favorite phase on the horizon, I’m clinging to the sweet little man that he still is.  Joshua is a wonderful boy that brings a smile to us all.

My boys in their blue stripes!  They are wonderful, aren't they?