Eight Months Old!

I figured that I better add Caiden's eight month stats before he turns nine months old in just a couple days! Time really seems to have flown by, when it comes to this little guy. He turned eight months old on December 10, 2011. He continues to be my happy little (maybe not so little anymore) man! Except with a little edge to him. His personality really has started emerging and for the most part he is just easy going and laid back, but he does let you know when he's unhappy with you. Usually by grunting his displeasure. He's grunted since he was a couple of days old. It's pretty funny actually, if he is trying to do something and you somehow thwart or impede his progress, he grunts and kind of growls at you. When he's playing with something that Ayla takes away he gets mad and grunts at her. Maybe grunt isn't the right word I guess it's more like a guttural growl. It's pretty funny. He loves his Mommy and his Daddy pretty equally. This makes Daddy happy because Ayla always preferred me,Caiden is happy with either of us. He'll be perfectly happy with me, and then when Daddy gets home he gets really excited and starts reaching for him and laughing. Daddy loves it. I don't have any official stats, because he didn't have a doctor's appointment this month, but my guess is that he's somewhere between 19-20 lbs. He fits in 6-9 month clothes but they're pretty snug, 12 month clothes are much more comfortable on him. Unfortunately for him he has the short little legs that both of his parents have and most pants are too long on him. I just started putting him in size 4 diapers, size threes were way too tight. He is so close to crawling, but too be honest he gets around fine with a combination of rolling, turning himself in the right direction with his arms and then doing a kind of military crawl using his arms and a little pushing with his toes.It's really cute. Both of my kids have been late bloomers when it comes to crawling. Ayla didn't crawl until she was nine months old and then walked at ten months old. Looks like Caiden is going to follow suit. He LOVES tooling around in his walker. I try not to put him in it too much because now there's this research that says that it causes kids to walk later. I don't know, Ayla walked early. But anyway, it is a good place for me to put him when I'm busy and don't want to leave him in the living room at the mercy of Ayla. He does really well in the walker actually almost running in it. He always heads right for the fridge and plays with the magnets. He also loves his jumper. He LOVES jumping and won't just stand. If you hold his hand he will pull up to a standing position and stand there bouncing. He sometimes won't sit now, but tries really hard to stand. I sometimes lean him up against the couch and put some toys on the couch for him. I stay right behind him, but he'll stand there for awhile just playing with the toys. He still has yet to get his first tooth. Apparently my kids are late bloomers in that area too, Ayla didn't get her first tooth until she was 13 months old. I keep thinking that his first tooth is on the way because he's been drooling for months, but I guess he's just drooley. He says, Dada and Mama but we're unsure if he knows what he's saying. He claps his hands and gives kisses. (Which are more like a big drooley lick, but still cute!) He loves eating and I have yet to feed him anything that he won't eat. He doesn't really like green beans or peas but he'll eat them. He LOVES avocados and I often grind them up in my bullet and make a few meals for him out of a couple avocados. He loves cheerios and if I put some on his tray he will amuse himself for quite awhile pushing them around and actually getting some in his mouth. He LOVES the little tool bench that he got for Christmas. I showed him how to bang with the hammer and he has become an expert banger. He now bangs on anything and everything with that hammer, or anything that even slightly resembles his hammer. He also really likes Ayla's toys of course. It's funny how that happens. It seems sometimes like he plays with her toys more and she plays with his more. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side! 

Here's some pictures of my happy little man. All these pictures were taken on Dec 10, when he actually turned eight months old. It's really hard to get him to pose now especially with a sign so I did the best I could. Judge for yourself...

"Hey what's this thing?"

"Ohh, it's crinkly, I LOVE crinkly things!"

 "Hmm, I wonder how it tastes!"

"Pretty good..."

"Oh no, here comes Daddy, he's gonna take it away!"

 "Urgghhh"

"No!" (lots of grunting)

 "Wait one more crinkle noise before it goes"

"Oh darn, it's gone"

 "So what's all this Mom?" "You want me to smile?"

 "All right, I'll try..."

 "Hey, where'd that cool crinkly paper go?"

 "Ha, I see it!" "No to get to it..."

(Inch forward...inch forward...) Yea!

 "Haha!" (crinkle, crinkle)

 "Oh, Daddy's gonna stand me up!"

"Look at me, look at me!"