My beach baby

I absolutely love living so close to the beach.  It literally take us 10 minutes to get there.  Last week, while Colby was at his surfing class (yes--how cool is that? Colby is taking a surfing class through UCLA!) Hudson and I swung by the Santa Monica pier to play with the camera.  He loved everything going on, so much so that we hardly got any of his looking at the camera, but that's ok.  He was so distracted by the people, ground, amusement park rides, and especially the sand!  I had him on a towel when he was on the sand, and before I was even able to take the first picture, he had already leaned over the edge of the towel and was scooping handfuls of sand.  Such a boy. I love it!

 

My future Mozart

The other day as Hudson and I sat on the couch, he noticed the piano keys weren't covered and started reaching toward them. We went and sat at the piano, and for the first time he instantly started pounding on the keys to the point they would make noise--lots of noise. It was so fun to watch his reaction to it. I played a bit and he watched my fingers. I would play high notes and he'd watch that, and then flip his head the other way when he would hear a low note. Too cute! I sat him on the bench alone for a bit for him to explore and grabbed a few photos. Love this child of mine.

8 months

2/3rd of a year. growing bigger, smarter, cuter, more curious and aware, and more of a personality each day.

Things he's doing this past month:

Sucks on lips and tongue

Rocks back and forth while sitting

Makes noises when we feed him solids, like mmmmm.

Loves his toys--gave him the whole tub once and he was in heaven. It was like he didn't know how to get in playtime with each toy fast enough. It has become part of the morning routine now to play with the whole tub of toys.

Gets to keep his rubber ducky after bath time while getting dressed then returns it to the tub after. This was initiated by dad and is so cute!

6 teeth!

Doesn't like having clothes put over his head--unless he knows we are pulling the clothes off for bath time, then he sits patiently.

Is perfectly content sitting in the stroller or carseat until we start to take him out, then he starts fussing and can't get out fast enough. He needs more patience!!

Has become a little acrobat in the crib. We go in to check on him during naps/night and he is in completely different places then we left him. For the first time, this month, he rolled over onto his stomach and fell asleep while in the crib.

Will finally drink water/juice, but only from a bottle, not interested in a sippy cup.

tried avocado--not a fan. We think he doesn't like the slimy texture of avocado or bananas mashed up. If we mix it with rice cereal he is fine.

Sits like a champ!!

Can pick up puffs/cheerios and tries to put them in his mouth. Sometimes he gets it and is clearly so proud of himself. Most of the time though, he gets the piece in hit fist, but can't figure out how to open his fist and get the piece in his mouth--by the end of the month he is much better. He also eats chunks of cut up bananas.

Wearing size 3 diapers!

Loves looking at things upside down. He will lay out on our legs and throw his head back so it is upside down, very intentionally. I guess he enjoys the new perspective?

Not crawling, but getting close. He can turn 360 degrees while on his tummy like nobodies business, and scoots backward, just hasn't gotten the forward motion down.

Unfortunately, had a little set back in sleeping this month. He used to go down for naps with little to no crying, and night time was almost always no crying. Over the past week, he has started boycotting nap time and just cries when I lay him down. I think it's a combination of a bit of separation anxiety, ability to easily turn over in his crib, and a rapidly developing brain that he can't quite shut down. With an altered wind down nap time routine, we are back on track to happy, healthy sleeping habits. Thankfully, even when it took 2+ hours to get him to fall asleep at nights, he still slept until 7:30 am. It never affected his ability to sleep well, the problem was just getting to sleep.