8-Month Update

Owen turns 8-months old today, so it's time for an update!  I had the hardest time narrowing down what pictures I would use for the blog, because it has been a really great month full of cuteness!  Here is our monthly picture:

Owen has been trying new foods, and he is normally eating approximately 2-3 small meals per day.  Some days he goes on solid food hunger strikes, but I give him food when he'll take it.  I've had to forgo some of my baby led weaning due to some pretty bad constipation issues.  After researching foods that would help, I had to start purees to make sure he actually consumes a descent amount.  He eats a lot of prune puree, avocado and pear mixtures, banana, etc.  I still try to give him chunks of food, because he really does prefer to feed himself.  He does the windmill trying to block me with purees, but he'll gobble down a chunk of something.  He even ate some pieces of salmon last night while we were out to dinner.  He doesn't take a bottle, making it pretty much impossible to give him water, so I'll give him chunks of watermelon.  He LOVES watermelon...who doesn't though?!

Owen now has 3.5 teeth.  He has the two bottom front teeth, one of the top teeth to the immediate left of where his front teeth will be, and one that is just breaking through to the immediate right of where his front teeth will be.  I can see a bunch of them just waiting to break through, so we've got some serious teething going on.

Owen is a seriously happy guy that loves to play with all of 'Jack's' toys.  This leads to some frustration on Jack's part, but the sibling sharing had to happen eventually :).  

Such a cutie laughing it up at a restaurant:

He's sitting up really well, but I don't trust him without a pillow nearby.  He would rather be on his stomach, so he takes nose dives or falls backwards to get on his back and roll over to his front so that he can commando crawl around.  

The big developmental things that have popped up over the past month include:

• He started saying ba-ba, da-da, and ma-ma about a day or two after turning 7-months.  I think he was saying ba-ba a little before that, but I can't quite remember.
• He moves things back and forth between his hands.
• He has the beginnings of the pincher grasp.  He tries to pick up blueberries with his pinchers, but he's not quite there yet.
• As I mentioned before, he's commando crawling.  He is still pushing up and straightening his arms, but he hasn't gotten up on his knees yet at the same time.
• His sleep has been erratic to say the least.  While in Chicago and the week after he was waking up about 2-3 times per night, sometimes up to 4 times.  I think a lot of that was the perfect storm of having a cold, teething, traveling, bed changes, and constipation.  This past week has been better with two nights where he woke up only once, and the rest of the time he woke up twice per night.
• He is a really good napper who takes 1-2 hour naps twice per day with an occasional short third nap.  He even had one nap that lasted 2.5 hours earlier this week.
• He has some separation anxiety related to me.  I call him my little koala, because he hooks his arm around my arm when I hold him on my hip and if I try to hand him off or put him down he tightens his hook grip.  If he decides he wants to hang out with me I can't even hand him off to Jonathan without him crying.  One night I was trying to sit down in the nursing chair to read him books, but he thought I was trying to put him in bed.  He clung on for dear life as I was trying to pry him off of me to sit in my lap.  Once he realized we were reading books he calmed down and got happy.
• He really loves walks and facing out in the stroller to see what's going on and look at the trees.
• His favorite book is the Sandra Boynton book "Moo, Baa, La La, La."  He looks up at the reader (me or Jonathan) and smiles when we make animal sounds, particularly the cat, duck, and horse sounds.

Jack has his moments where he doesn't want Owen around or doesn't want to share with Owen, but he is a really great big brother overall.  I think they're going to have a lot of fun once Owen is a little bit older.  They make each other laugh every day.

Jack's new thing is to bury Owen under blankets and pillows.  It's all in good fun, but I officially cannot leave them alone in a room together for longer than about 10 seconds.  Jack has tried to put giant couch cushions on top of Owen.  Owen thinks it's funny and gets a kick out of the attention from his big brother.

Jack led Owen between the chair and ottoman and said they were crawling through a tunnel.

Jack has also started taking his position as big brother more seriously by always wanting to help with Owen.  He tries to comfort Owen when he cries and says, "I make Owen happy."  He also loves feeding Owen.  Messy but cute:

Jack also helps bathe Owen:

Jack has been cracking me up lately.  He has quite the sense of humor, and he is into everything.  Jack was using the Mr. Potato Head pieces to be silly the other day:

He is also obsessed with the jumper.  I constantly find him in it, and I have to help him out since he always gets stuck.

I think it's time for Jack to graduate to a normal pair of kids sunglasses, but he still loves wearing his first pair.  He will walk up to strangers while wearing them saying, "I wear sunglasses.  They're blue."  He thinks they are so cool!

I'm attempting to remedy making Jack mildly OCD when it comes to messes.  I let him finger paint the other day, and he was very hesitant to dip his fingers in the paint.  He kept saying, "I'm gonna dooo it.  I'm gonna dooo it," but he would pull his finger back afraid to get dirty.  When he first stuck his finger in the paint he said, "Oh no!  Mommy get a towel!"  By the end, though, his hands were covered in paint, and he was saying, "I'm doing it!!" 

Our everyday activity is taking a walk around the block or to the park while Jack rides his push bike.  We sometimes even do it twice a day the boys love it so much.

Jack is starting to exercise his will a little bit more these days, but he's still one of the sweetest little people around.  Every day he spontaneously tells Jonathan and me, "I love you sooo much!" and gives us hugs and kisses.  I really need to get it on video so I can watch it repeatedly during the teenage years ;).