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?

So Big At 7 Months!

Oh!  What a month!  Joshua has had a crazy month.  He has progressed by leaps and bounds in his mobility, he finally got hungry, and he endured sickness.  We’ve continued to have so much fun with him and we love him dearly.

6 month front yard photo shoot:

In terms of mobility, Joshua can get around effectively, if not with coordination.  He rolls and drags himself around.  He’s up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth.  His legs know how to crawl but his arms haven't gotten the hang of it yet.  His legs crawl forward then he propels his torso forward onto his belly, then repeats the process.  He now sits like a pro and can even go from laying down to sitting on his own.

Some hands and knees action!

I couldn’t choose just one of these pictures.  Now he’s big enough to hang with the big boys!  And they love him to death.

Joshua doesn’t have any teeth yet, but he’s been acting like he’s teething for ages now.  He eats oatmeal, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, peas, peach, and apple sauce.  Oatmeal is his favorite, followed by fruits.  Veggies are not well accepted usually.  In fact, he’s really not big on food at all.

Look at all that drool!  How can he NOT be getting any teeth?

Waiting on dinner!

Sadly, Joshua has already had his first ER visit.  We haven't been down that road with any of the boys yet, so this was a first, but he had a GI bug and was constantly vomiting.  It was so pitiful and Peds After Hours said he needed to go straight there.  Anti-nausea meds were ineffective initially and so they had to put a catheter in my baby to give him fluids.  He did fairly well once treatment was complete, but it took a good 2 weeks for him to have a decent appetite again.  Unfortunately, I was next and ended up in the same boat.  If the poor guy felt like I did, then he was miserable.

Joshua did this himself.  He was laying on the blanket and rolled over while holding it.  Too cute and he was thrilled!

But he’s healthy now!

Overall, Joshua seems to be doing better with his sleeping habits, though old habits rear their ugly head every now and then for no apparent reason.  Generally, he takes two long naps and one short nap and is back to mostly sleeping through the night.  Thank goodness.

I put him to bed as a little boy, and he woke up a merman!  Yes, that is both legs stuck in one and he was perfectly happy about it.

One of my favorite things about this month is the new scrunched face Joshua gives to get a laugh.  He scrunches it up and breaths fast and hard through his nose and it’s too cute.  It is very effective in getting a laugh.

This isn’t quite that cute scrunched face, but it’s still cute.

How can we not be smitten?

Joshua is just trucking along in life.  While he might be our most difficult baby yet (I think we created that!), he certainly is a trooper and manages to hang in there with our crazy life.  His brothers think he is too cute to keep their hands off of and we are proud parents.  We love his sweet, contagious smile and can’t help but kiss his precious face. 

Just truckin’ along!

Wild Berries!

There are so many things I love about this time of year (except for the dread of extreme heat on the way!) and berry picking is one of those things.  Starting with strawberries while it’s still cold out, followed by blueberry and blackberry picking when the weather is nice to downright hot.  We live in a great place to do all of the above without going much more than a mile from home.  Specifically, we can blueberry and blackberry pick while out on a wagon or jeep ride on any given day and I LOVE it!  I don’t eat the berries myself, but I love picking for my sweetnesses.

We’ve been berry picking on a walk twice this week already.  While picking blackberries along a fence line along the road, Jacob was explaining to Josiah that they weren’t planted blackberries like on a farm, but instead they grew wild, to which Josiah replied with all seriousness, “if you eat them, does it make you wild?”  We burst out laughing!

Strawberry picking at Roger’s Farm:

Showing me a berry.  Notice Joshy in the background?

Nice berry!

 

This is our neighbor’s blueberry patch.  They are kind enough to let us pick here as long as we don’t take more than we can eat ourselves.

Off we go!

Along for the ride.

Improvisation.

 

And I guess I didn’t get any pictures of us blueberry picking at Parrish Family Farms where we go to fill our freezer with enough blueberrys to last us the year.  I also neglected to take pictures of us picking blackberries along the road to our house – probably because I was busy keeping them from getting stuck by the thorns!

A Little Crazy Fun!

We’ve been known to let our boys run around and play in sprinklers in the yard in less than decent attire.  It’s the beauty of country living.   I don’t post the naked sprinkler fun (though the pictures are hilarious), but who can resist this?  I think they have more fun the less they wear!  There’s something about spontaneous play where there’s no time for dressing appropriately that makes life extra fun.

Well, at least that part of them will be clean!

Elijah started doing this blind man walk starting way back before he hit the water then walked through to the other side with eyes closed and arms out.  I have no idea why.

Cuteness!