Jack is 8 months old

My happy Jack, you are 8 months old!

'Say what mom?'

Oh I know, I can hardly believe it. You are getting so big! It seems that over night you have become quite the opinionated little human! 

You officially threw your first fit...I was taking you into the changing area, it's in your closet, and as we were walking in you looked at me, got in my face and grunted (universal man language style), grabbed my hair and yank, yank, yanked! I grabbed your hand, looked you in the eyes and said, "no, no Jack, we do not yell or pull hair!" You instantly felt bad, you looked at me with remorse and buried your head in my shoulder. Funny baby. You felt so many human emotions all at once. Anger, frustration, sadness, remorse, forgiveness, compassion. Wow...what a moment! No one can convince me you are not intelligent, you knew exactly what you did and that it was wrong. Amazing. 

You are sitting...when you want to. You would rather stand...which is hard on my arms and back, you are over 25 lbs! You can stand mostly unassisted. You are wanting to crawl so bad, you get pretty frustrated that you aren't quite coordinated enough. You are definitely strong enough though, you can do a downward dog pretty well and can get up in a plank position and do a push up...crazy baby!

You are eating like a champ, you love fruits, naturally, but I can mix in just about any veggie and you gobble it right down. You eat about 8oz of food at lunch and dinner and 4oz for breakfast, not a huge breakfast guy. We are still breastfeeding. I'm pretty proud of that, that everything has allowed us to do it for so long, it's a huge blessing financially. I really really wish you would take a bottle, sippy cup or straw cup. You can drink out of all of them you just don't like to. You will sip a little and then get distracted and chew on it. I even tried giving you juice to entice you, and to help with some constipation issues. I am not a fan of giving kids juice, empty calories, but in this case I was desperate. Nope...you didn't care. You took a few sips, your eyebrows raised like "yumm" and then you lost interest. Oh, well. Just you wait mister...I'm cutting you off at a year. I have loved being able to provide for you but I need to get out...alone. I also desire to go on a date with your Daddy...seriously! 

You are one ferocious teether. You finally have one bottom tooth peeking through and I can almost see the top of the other one...finally! I think you are starting to work on the tops now too.

You have been sleeping through the night with no food for a few weeks now. And you are just starting to not need any assistance to get back to sleep in the middle of the night, I would get up and scoot you down in your crib and give you a binky. You have slept through the night twice...both of those nights I wasn't able to sleep all the way though...figures!

Your first sounds have been more like first words. You say "hi, hey and yay!" When you say 'yay' you clap...it's adorable. Of course you say 'da-da' and you are getting a 'ma' sound out when you really want me. You are starting to say 'ba' I think for brother. You can also wave...when you really feel like it.

It's fun to watch how different you are from your brother...he is all we have known in our parenting lives so it's really fun for us to see such stark differences with you both being so young! 

You love your family and have the sweetest smile. You love your bouncer and your new walker. You love to play ball and can even palm most of the kid balls we have, you figured out that balls bounce and now chuck them all at the ground and giggle with delight. You think Ted, our dog, is your hilarious hairy older brother. You adore your big brother, like totally adore!  When we all play together you are cast as baby Godzilla most of the time, as you destroy what ever it is we are playing with, Jake just laughs. You want to wrestle with your Daddy and brother so bad. You love to be included in everything we are doing, better not leave out the baby. You aren't always the easiest baby. But, you do bring us so much joy. You add a bit of excitement to our family that wouldn't be there with out you. We have grown quite attached to you these past 8 months my little man...you are the perfect addition to our family. I can't wait to see how you will grow and change this month. Things just get more and more exciting from here on out!

Happy 8 months my little monkey!