Alexander at 8 months

I have a confession to make: I forgot how old my own baby was.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somehow instead of rounding down when people asked me how old he was I started rounding up. That's out of character for me because I always want my babies to stay little. Alexander is rather ginormous so I think it's pretty clear that he's not going to stay little and somehow, like I said, I just started rounding up.

By the time he was actually 8 months old I had convinced myself that he had been 8 months old all along and thus thought he was now 9 months old. But then—after tallying things up on my fingers—I realized that he was truly only 8 months old.

So suddenly my baby is littler than I had been thinking he was! I've gained an entire month of his life back, folks! Perhaps that is the way to make them seems smaller—rounding up instead of down.

Whatever the case, Alexander is 8 months (and one week) old. Here's what he's up to:


At eight months, Alexander can...

• crawl really well. He when he's cranky will still sometimes give it one little push before collapsing on the floor to cry until someone picks him up (or will just sit there wailing, either way) but he's mostly given up army crawling and is full-blown all over the house all of the time. 
• pull himself up to kneeling. He loves pulling up on things but has only made it to a full standing position a couple of times. Standing is his favourite. This morning he tried pulling himself up on the garbage can and tipped it over. That was not his favourite (nor mine).
• blow raspberries. And he thinks it's hilarious (he's not wrong). He likes to blow bubbles just with his mouth as well but if he can get his mouth on your arm or neck or leg he'll probably give you a big ol' raspberry. He will also blow raspberries on his own arm. It is not unusual to find the majority of residents in this house covered in slobber.
• feed himself finger foods. He loves cut up fruit (strawberries, bananas, peaches, pears, watermelon) and Cheerios and graham crackers and pretty much anything.
• sit up by himself. This doesn't mean "unassisted sitting," as in keeping his balance while sitting (that's old news). Rather, this means that he can get into a sitting position by himself. 
• use the potty. He's no longer terrified of sitting on his little potty and will often fill it after his naps (when he's in the right mood).
• bite! He has two little teeth now and, boy, can he use them! We went through a bit of a nursing strike not too long ago because he bit me so badly while he was nursing (with a decade of nursing experience under my belt I feel somewhat qualified to make this assessment: it was a bad bite) and I overreacted and scared him. And then he was nervous to latch. He'd stare me down while latching—almost looking worried, not that I'd yelp almost like he was worried that he might hurt me again (he's thoughtful like that)—and I'd stare him down while holding my breath (because nursing was a little terrifying for a while there (no one wants to nurse a shark)). And then he'd just give up and turn away because it was all too stressful. So I could only feed him when he was half asleep and it was this big emotional hurdle for both of us, but I think we're about over it now. Breastfeeding is once again a positive thing for us, so yay!
• breathe fairly normally. He still gets a little...honky...when he's sleeping (especially when he's nursing and sleeping at the same time) or when he's really excited about things.
• babble. Mostly bahs and mahs and slobbery sounds. He was singing to himself in his carseat today and that was pretty sweet.
• make messes. He loves to pull things off shelves and empty boxes of toys. And that's just what we needed—yet another person to strew things about the house willy nilly and not care a fig about picking them back up again. Things were getting far too tidy around here!

Alexander loves...

• eating
• swinging
• sproingy doorstops
• phones
• going for walks
• teddy bears
• cars
• putting everything into his mouth
• snuggles
• standing with support
• bouncing
• hair (pulling it)
• speed crawling toward anything he shouldn't have
• his siblings from a distance (so what I mean to say is that he loves personal space)
• his toothbrush

Alexander hates...

• facial hair (beards are downright scary)
• when someone walks past him without paying him attention
• hugs from Zoë
• having his nose wiped
• being wiped off after eating
• wearing hats (hats are the worst)