Connor remains as active as ever. It's getting nigh impossible to take a nice picture of him. He will only sit still for five seconds, if even that. Here are a few outtakes from the morning I was trying to take his 8-month photo. It's a bit of a miracle that I managed to get any pictures of him sitting up and holding still at all.
This last month he has learned to sit up on his own, and he has perfected his crawling. He crawls like a champ now, and is so unbelievably fast. He's like a little lizard the way he darts around. He's super fast at transitioning from to crawling, to sitting, to standing.
Another example of his fearlessness was when I was holding him on the couch one day. He crawled out of my arms, over the arm of the couch, onto the box we were using as a barricade to keep him from getting to the power cords behind our chair, and into the rocking chair. Then he just sat there rocking back and forth and smiling as big as can be. He was so proud of himself. We've since moved the box, but that doesn't slow him down. He'll just climb across the gap from the couch to the chair.
Since he's become even more mobile, changing his diaper and getting him dressed have become almost impossible. He waits until I have his diaper off, and then twists and wiggles out of my grasp and takes off across the floor, half naked. Sometimes giving him something to hold while I change him will do the trick. I've had to learn how to change his diaper while he stands up, because sometimes that's the only way I can get him to hold still. I let him stand up against the front of the couch and put something on the cushion for him to play with while I quickly change his diaper. Whatever works, right? Haha! Sometimes it takes both me and Brian to change his diaper...one to distract and keep him still while the other does the changing. Even this doesn't work at times. It's ridiculous that such a little boy needs two adults to get him changed. Haha!
One day, I was trying to get him dressed, and he just wouldn't hold still. I managed to finally get his onesie over his head before he took off. I was so tired of trying that I just let him crawl away, and off he went with his shirt around his neck. He got as far away from me as he could before stopping, sitting up, and turning to look at me with this impish little smile on his face. He's just so cute I can't stay frustrated with him for long.
I can't take my eye off of Connor for even a minute or he's found something else to get into. A couple of his new favorite places in the apartment are under the table and in our bathroom. He loves to bang on the toilet seat like a drum. He also loves to stand next to the tub and screech because the shower tiles make his little voice so much louder. He also loves his baths, so he gets excited when he sees the tub. I keep our bathroom pretty clean, but it's still a bathroom and I don't like him crawling around in there. He makes a bee-line for it every chance he gets, so I have to keep the door shut to keep him out.
We've given up with trying to keep him out of the vertical blinds in our living room. At first they were so exciting for him, but now he doesn't play with them as much. One day he was playing in the blinds and he started fussing. I could tell he was getting frustrated, and finally realized that he was trying to push them out of the way so that he could see outside. Each time he let them go, they would swing back in his way, and it made him so mad. It was funny, and once I opened them he was happy again and left them alone. Now he only pulls on them when I haven't opened them for the day.
He loves to play with the floor lamp that we keep between the couch and chair. He climbs up on the arm of the couch and grabs the lamp's pole and moves it back and forth. When he does this, the lamp shade swings back and forth, and he gets such a kick out of it. One day, he pulled it so far that it tipped over...so I don't let him play that game anymore.
He still loves to play with the doors of our t.v. stand and has started pulling out our dvd's. He's getting taller too, and can reach the lotion bottle, nail clippers, and diaper rash ointment I keep on the t.v. stand. I'm going to have to find a new place for all of that pretty soon.
He's pretty bored with most of his toys these days, so we really need to get him some new ones. He's still obsess with cups, napkins, papers, and cords of any kind and will choose to go after those instead of one of his toys we have put out for him. He's started biting off pieces of the napkins, so I keep those out of his reach. Occasionally, he still will become interested in a random toy or too. Brian brought home this wand from a Harry Potter themed work party a few months ago. I had just thrown it in our toy basket and forgotten about it. Connor found it one day and was SO excited by it. He waved it around and used it as a drumstick all afternoon. I don't let him play with it unsupervised so he doesn't poke it in his eye or stick it too far in his mouth. Each time I pull it out for him to play with, he gets just as excited as the first time.
We love playing with our little boy. He is so much fun and his laugh is infectious. Since he's started crawling, Connor and I have crawl chases, where we chase each other back and forth around the couch. It's so funny to crawl after him and listen to him giggle as I try to catch him. When he knows I'm going to get him, he'll stop and sit up and grab my face as I tickle him. Then he turns around and crawls after me trying to catch me. When I let him catch me, he mauls me with the biggest open mouthed kisses. It's the funniest game.
We have a fabric frisbee that folds up to fit in a small pouch. Brian will fold it up and then let it go so it pops open while Connor is watching. He laughs every time, and thinks its the most amazing trick. They have a lot of fun playing that game.
Some other new things that Connor does:
- He loves to click his tongue on the roof of his mouth, and pop his lips.
- He blows raspberries and spit bubbles all the time.
- He gave me a raspberry on the bottom of my foot the other day. It was so unexpected and it really tickled. I pulled my foot away so quickly that it made him laugh. It was so funny.
- He loves to babble, and we love to hear his little voice. New sounds he's made include lala and baba. I swear I've heard a mama or two, and Brian is sure he's heard dada. It's all just random sounds at this point...no words yet. The only problem with his babbling all the time is that he get so noisy during church!
- He loves to listen to us tell stories. When the stories involve a book, he's not so much interested in the story then as he is in turning the pages and figuring out how they work.
- We've tried to give him a bath in the bathtub outside of his baby bathtub a couple of times, but he is just so wiggly that it makes me nervous. He tries to stand up and crawl around, and even though I don't fill the tub very full, he's so slippery that I'm worried about him falling and inhaling water. So we're going to stick to his baby bathtub for a bit longer.
Connor still loves to stand up. He walks so well along the front of the couch while holding onto the cushions. He doesn't walk yet, but he's started to only hold on things with one hand for support while he reaches out for other objects with the other hand.
My mom let us borrow a walker type toy. He loves to walk with it. He is slow to take steps sometimes, and the walker will roll ahead of him and he'll lose his balance and fall to his knees. But he likes to keep trying. He has figured out how to unscrew the big, red, plastic screws that hold the legs in place. He really likes to do that, and we have to keep putting it back together. Smart little guy!
Connor is still so curious about everything and anything, and once he zeroes in on something he will concentrate so intensely while checking it out. Objects that fascinate him include zippers, cords, shoelaces, his fingers and toes, mom's hair, dad's ears, and any thing else that is string-like, shiny, or has moving parts. He is not easily distracted when he wants something he can't have. It's really interesting to watch him focus on a single object and sit still for so long as he explores it.
The other day I dressed Connor in a pair of Carhartt overalls that he received for his baby. He was so ridiculously cute in them that I had to snap a picture. Baby's first pair of overalls. I knew my dad would be so proud, so I sent the picture to him. I was right...Grandpa Miller was quite happy to see Connor in overalls. He looks ready to go help out on the farm!
Just a week or so ago, Connor started shrugging his arms. He was just sitting on the floor playing with some toys and then he stretched his arms out and shrugged. It was hilarious and oh so cute. I shrugged while asking him a question, and he did it again! He does it every now and then, and we just can't get enough of it.
For the most part, Connor still doesn't have a lot of hair. It is growing in on the sides and back, but it's taking its sweet time. He does have a thick shock of hair on the top of his head. I love how the hair in back gets fuzzy, and the hair on top sometimes dries in a slight wave. Occasionally, a tuft will stick straight up from the crown of his head. Its so cute. The hair in front was getting so long and a bit scraggly. So I gave his bangs a little trim. I took maybe a 1/4 inch off...hardly anything. There wasn't really enough to save, and since it was just the tinniest of trims, I'm not counting it as his first haircut. I told Brian that I was thinking of doing it and he wanted me to wait until he needed a real haircut, but those few strands were just looking so stringy that I couldn't not do it. So I did. I didn't say anything to Brian about it, but of course he noticed that night after he got home from work. Haha! He just laughed and shook his head.
Connor doesn't slow down for anything...even in his sleep. He still sleeps on his stomach in the crawling position with his little bum in the air. All night long, we can hear him rolling and scooting around in his crib while he's fast asleep. He takes two naps during the day, and still wakes up once at night, crying until we give him a bottle. He'll scarf down the formula in no time and be back to sleep. He usually has a pretty soggy diaper at this point, and struggles while I change it. He just wants to go back to sleep after he eats. I'm still longing for the days when he sleeps through the night, but as night-time feedings goes it's usually pretty painless. Occasionally, he'll have a bad night where he's restless and fussy and just won't settle down. He'll wake up two or three times then, but usually still only eats once.
He still loves to cuddle while falling asleep, and I love to rock him or lay by him while he drifts off. I know I probably should be getting him to go to sleep on his own, but I just love the cuddle time with him too much. Especially since he's usually too busy to want to cuddle the rest of the day. One Sunday afternoon, I found Brian and Connor snuggled together and sound asleep. It was adorable.
Connor continues to eat well. He drinks four to five bottles per day, ranging from 5 to 7 ounces of formula at each feeding. I feed him baby food three times a day, and he eats the entire 4 ounce container each time. I give him a fruit in the morning, a vegetable at lunch, and have just recently started giving him a meat flavor for dinner. He still hasn't been picky about anything I've offered him. The newest baby foods I've given him include banana, mango, pineapple, chicken apple, cherry, and apricot. I've given him small bits of bread, banana bread, watermelon, raspberries, and strawberries. He did fine with the breads, but gagged on the watermelon, smacked his lips with the raspberries, and spit out the strawberries. I'm not sure that he's ready for table food yet, but I'm going to slowly keep trying to give him little bits here and there. We started him on a sippy cup around the first of July so he could start getting some water during the day. He took to it right away, and loves to drink water. I have to be careful when and how much I let him drink, or he will drink to much and then not want his bottle.
Other Connor stats:
- He still has very blonde hair.
- His eyes are almost entirely brown, but there is a bit of blue still hanging on around the edges.
- He wears size three diapers
- He's outgrown the majority of his 6 to 9 month clothes, so I moved him up to size 9-12 months. The bigger size is quite large on him, but I'm sure he'll grow into it in no time.
- He doesn't have any teeth yet, but started teething the beginning of July for a few days. His little cheeks and nose got so red, and I could see and feel a reddish bump on his lower left gum (to the left of where his bottom two teeth will be). He started acting pretty fussy too so I could tell he was hurting. After a few days, it stopped and I've suspected that it's started and stopped again here and there, but he hasn't had any definite signs like before.
- His poor toenails on his big toes have a constant vertical split down the middle. I try to keep them trimmed but I can't get ahead of the split. They look so painful, but they don't seem to bother him. They split because he is always using the tips of us toes to crawl up things. He's just so hard on them. I'm not sure what to do. I though about keeping socks on his feet, but then he loses traction and slips and falls more.
Connor didn't have a well visit this month, so we wrestled with him to get his measurements.
- Weight: 18 lbs; 30th percentile
- Height: 28 inches; 81st percentile
- Head Circumference: 17 7/8 inches;45.4 cm; 76th percentile
If these measurements are correct, then he's growing so well...especially in weight. Yay! We will get official measurements next month at his nine month checkup.
Love this busy boy!
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