carson taylor: eight months

dear carson,

(it's been awhile since i've started one of these posts this way ;o)) 

you have changed in nearly every way this month!  i feel like i'm starting to realize for the first time since your birth that you won't be my baby for long.  

let me try to summarize your new tricks:  you can now scoot backward, sit and play independently, hold your own bottle without help (when you want to haha), jump for minutes on end in your jumperoo, get up on your knees and up on your hands but not both at the same time...yet.  we are working on clapping and talking and crawling. these days i cant turn my back for minute - you'll be on your tummy scooting all over - usually just in a circle because you haven't quite mastered all of the coordination.

  the babbling is becoming more direct and intense and when you feel the urge you just 'talk' away.   noises are abundant lately.  your teachers comment on your chewbacca impressions and you'll blow raspberries for days. 

now let's talk about your lovins.  your kisses look like this: two hands in the hair and a head butt to the cheek/chin area with a big wide open mouth full of slobber.  i love every bit of it! 

no food is off limits although we've taken a break from bananas because they were giving you gas. (insert blushed face emoji) this month you added carrots, spinach, cherries, and blends of raspberries, greek yogurt, plums, and corn to your palette. you also tried your first lemon and much to my surprise it didn't seem to phase you one bit.  you have no teeth yet which makes me tentative about hard solids though i can see white just below your gums.  

i've gotta say we have lucked out in the happy baby department.  i am constantly getting comments about how happy and smiley you are (also about your chunkiness but, more on that later).  you know no strangers!  everyone you meet is a friend and when i take you for visits at work and you get passed from one person to the next you just smile and coo with the best of 'em.  it delights all of the grandmas and grandpas.   

you are very alert and aware of your surroundings and you love laughing.  you laugh and giggle when others laugh, particularly mommy.  we play every night and whenever i pick you up and start laughing you get the giggles which makes me laugh which gives you the hiccups....it's the best kind of cycle. 

at daycare you've been busy: sensory play for ocean week, purple mashed potatoes for color exploration, a petting zoo and firetruck, and lots of outside time!  lately they've made special note to call out your favorite toys - balls and the alphabet bus.   

you are a little creature of habit and some nights are simply incorrigible.  you wake between 2 and 3 AM for a few ounces and then it's back to sleep and up at 6/6:30 ready to play.   there was period for a week plus that you were waking again 2-3 times a night  which was rough on your working parents!  in the past month you did sleep through the night (the night before my half marathon). it was a miracle!  thank you!  however, we've come to a point of last resort.  after your 1 feeding we let you cry it out.  it's sucks! but rocking you for 30 minutes after eating is a bit much and was leaving us running close to empty.  i hate hearing you cry but you usually fall back asleep within a few minutes and don't wake until morning.  

 nicknames; i've given you so many!  here are the ones i'm guilty of calling you: chunky monkey, pork chop (this one originated with grandpa gary), carson baby, and pnuggey or pnugs - apparently i couldn't commit to peanut or nugget so i mashed the two into one all your own. 

by virtue of contracting pink eye - again! - we got weight and height measurements.  this month you are officially 17 lbs 12 oz (33rd percentile) and 2' 1" - you have not grown up - still 0 percentile.  you're in size three diapers and six month everything else.  

phew!  i think that about covers it.  i love you little man.  more than you will ever know!!  happy eight months. 

yep, we brush every night.  he loves it!

it's rare you get so mad you cry - that face though.

we've recently discovered you love steering wheels.

funny moment of the month: you trying to get your duck toy - which dad caught on video.  you are tenacious.  when the duck fell out of your reach and over the boppy pillow you make valiant effort to grasp it and when that didn't work you leaned waaaayyyy over.  then you tipped.  onto your head.  but that didn't stop you.  you started babbling as if to say 'i'm gunna get you, i really am.'  and you continued to reach with all your might as you floundered on your tummy, half on and half off the boppy pillow.  no luck.  this continued for a few minutes before dad finally gave in but, at no point did you cry or get mad.  

then there's this.  dad has apparently not learned his lesson about the safety straps.