Brady, you turned 8 months old at the end of June. Time sure is flying! You are changing at such a fast pace. You kicked off this month with a little congestion. It didn’t seem to bother you too much, only when you nursed or slept.  When we use the bulb syringe to clear your nose, you toss and turn about and make funny faces while trying to dodge it so, I have to hold you in my arms while we do it. You make the funniest faces while trying to look at as it gets close to your face. You blow bubble/air out of your mouth with your tongue as if you’re trying to help. You also love to chew on it.

My goodness you are becoming mobile quickly. You are still rolling everywhere, but have added a nice army scoot/crawl to your bag of tricks. Your a fast little bugger.  You are also making many sounds and syllables quite loudly: “Tsss….dahhh…dahhhh…tss..tss…”

You’re nursing 4x a day now. 8 am, 12 noon, 4 pm, and 8 pm. Nursing has been hit or miss lately. We had a good month or so of nursing. Now your decision to nurse or not is so sporadic. Sometimes you’ll only take one side (doesn’t matter which side) and sometimes you’ll nurse for a few seconds then want to play or act unsatisfied. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with my supply.  I’ve considered myself pretty patient through this whole “new mom” experience, but this one really pushes my buttons. It’s probably because I really dislike pumping when you’re right here to nurse. It basically adds an extra hour into our routine that I don’t plan ahead for (20-30 min to pump since the pump works way less efficiently than a baby nursing only 10 minutes) and 20 minutes to formula bottle feed. It’s even more difficult to pump when I am home alone with you because you’re so mobile. I bet you have a visual in your head now of me chasing a baby around while trying to pump. It’s not funny until a few hours/days later.  As much as I’ve disliked pumping, it’s given me an opportunity to save up my freezer supply for RaRa to feed you while we’re in Colorado for a friend’s wedding.

After each first 3 nursing sessions in the day you eat about 4 oz of homemade pureed solids. You’ve enjoyed just about everything I’ve given you. The first bit evokes a “Mom, what is this weird stuff?” facial expression, followed by nice sized bites that show you approve and want more. So far I’ve made all your baby food from scratch. I’ve followed most recipes from Annabel Karmel’s  Top 100 baby purees, but sometimes I’ll just puree some left over fresh fruit we have. You start the day with a mashed banana mixed with oatmeal. It’s so easy/convenient/cheap.  I’m glad you’re a good eater (hope that lasts!). Then, we do veggies at lunch, and more fruit (and occasionally veggies) at “dinner”.  You’ve started drinking a few sips of water from a little Doidy cup. You inhale really big and swallow too much and get anxious/excited. Or you just blow bubbles into the water.

You are napping two times a day from 10 am – 12 noon and 2 pm – 4 pm ish. Most evenings you’ll also take a cat nap within the 6 pm hour.  Lately you rest your head on my shoulder before bedtime or nap time. You could ask me for a pony while you do this and I’d buy you 10. It makes me so happy and seems to be the only time you sit still (besides when you nurse most of the time). All feels right in the world and it makes my heart go pitter patter. We moved your crib down to the lowest rung so that you cannot escape now that you can sit up on your own in your bed. You’ve been sleeping well at night, as well…. probably about 10-12 hours consistently. It’s amazing what sleep will do for me! I’m really starting to feel “normal” again. As normal as it’s probably going to be for a while.

You spit up a lot less these days, which is a HUGE blessing. It’s so much more enjoyable.  We bath you in the big bathtub in my  bathroom around 7:45, then nurse, and then bed. You enjoy baths. Rara got you some rubber duckies/toys for the bath that you like playing with.

You seem to be teething very much lately. So much drool and hands in your mouth constantly. Your first little tooth on the bottom started popping through around June 21!

In the living room we keep a small basket of your toys. It’s so cute how you know this is yours. After breakfast each morning you dump over / pull out every toy and seem to enjoy them.  Your favorite toy is the wooden spoon. Of course you also enjoy non-toy toys like boxes, paper, tupperware and shoes laying on the ground. Also, you LOVE tags. You find them in the most peculiar places, too.

You learned to clap at 7.5 months old. It only took you about 1 day to learn! Once you got the hang of it you clap all the time. You’ll even stop nursing to clap. Sometimes you don’t even stop nursing, you just start clapping – hah!  Right around this time is when Brian lost his job so he’s gotten to spend lots more time at home with us. It’s a blessing that he gets to see you growing and changing so quickly during this time. It was hard when he only got to see you for an hour or two in the evenings after work. Now we do fun-family-activities during the daytime when I’m not freelancing. We went to the Dallas Museum of Art and they have the best baby play room! Sometimes we go on family walks/jogs at the lake. This was Brian’s first Father’s Day, which we celebrated after we got home from an out of town wedding as a family and I made his favorite homemade banana puddin’.

We try to limit our exposure to the intense outdoor summer heat, but when we are outside your cheeks get so rosy, and boy do you sweat! It’s cute. We’ve been swimming at Grandpa Clif’s pool a couple times, which you like even though the water is almost always very cold. It’s refreshing in this heat, though.

This month we had a garage sale at our house with another family from our church home group. It was a success! We also traveled to San Antonio for a college friend’s wedding weekend. This was your first time to stay at a hotel and you did pretty well. RaRa, Aunt Di, and Gammy also stayed at the hotel and babysat you while we attended wedding events throughout the weekend. It was a blessing to have their help and to see them (briefly), as well as, some of my cousins. You got to see the RiverWalk on probably the hottest and most humid weekend ever.  You turned 8 months old the week we left for a friend’s wedding in Colorado, which I’ll write about in your next blog post. Lots of traveling this summer!

It’s only getting more fun each month. I’m excited to see how you develop crazy little boy!

 

Brady on INSTAGRAM:

Video of Brady “talking” loudly while wearing a mini sombrero!