8 Months Old!

Alas, I have no duck picture this month. We still don't have most of our stuff so Ethan's picture with his duck will have to come a bit belatedly.

Army Crawling

Ethan is *this close* to crawling. He will get up on all fours and rock back and forth for long periods of time. And he is really good at army crawling now. I turn my back for one second and he is across the room. His top three objects that he always tries to get:

1. Our laptop or laptop cables: Ethan is absolutely not allowed to play with the cables because he likes to bite them and his little teeth are sharp! But I do let him play with the laptop. I think he has ripped out half the keyboard by now - the letters pop back on so no biggie. He once also did something to activate explorer and 100 windows popped up before I could stop it. But he loves the laptop so much I still let him play with it. Hopefully once our stuff comes, he can get his own keyboard to bang on.
2. Our hotel (okay we are staying at a serviced apartment, but it's basically like a large hotel room. We even have a daily maid that washes the dishes for us. Nice!) slippers: Major yuck! I never want to see him chewing on these, but it's like baby crack. If he sees the slippers he is out on a mission to get at them. So now I try hiding the slippers away, but Mommy likes them! The kitchen and bathroom is cold hard marble and I hate walking on it barefoot. But I will do what I have to do because it's just gross if he eats slippers.
   
3. The dangling strips from his booster seat: Since the booster seat is attached to a chair he army crawls his way under the chair to swat at the ties. Unfortunately, he bangs his head against the chair legs while doing so. The first time I found out I was in the kitchen making him some lunch. I kept hearing a banging sound and when investigating I found him lunging after the straps. He lunged with a different arm each time and therefore would whack one side of his head and then the other on the chair legs. Poor baby. I don't think it hurt him (or else he would have stopped. Hopefully.) but I felt soooo bad for him. Now the dining room table is barricaded and off-limits.

I guess it's time to childproof. Only since we are in a hotel (serviced apartment), it's kinda hard to do so. I've set up a large play area covered with blankets that takes up our entire living room and placed large fluffy pillows all around it. He can't get over the pillows (yet) but if there is a small space between the pillows he will push and plow through it. The call of the laptop is too much for him.





Mr. Sipster

We introduced the sippy to Ethan at 7 months. It was the 'My First Sipster' by Playtex and I got it because of the awesome reviews. The first time Ethan tried it he took one sip (we used water as a test liquid in case it got messy), made a serious yuck face and then pushed the cup away from him. I think the water scared him and he refused to touch the cup again, which is a first because usually he wants to grab and eat any object around him. I tried two weeks later since I thought he would forget about the cup and its connotations but he wouldn't go near the cup. Again I waited another two weeks but no dice. Yesterday Bob brought back a new sippy from Singapore. It is the 'No-Spill Gripper Cup' by Nuby and has a soft silicone spout instead of the hard spout like the Playtex cup. I learned my lesson from the fist cup and used formula the first time I gave it to him. Ethan loves it! He drank 4 oz the first time we used it, and then today drank the whole bottle (8 oz) from it. I think he likes it because he can drink much faster from it than the bottle. Our little boy sure loves to eat! We do have to tip the cup for him halfway through though because he can't lift the cup too high. Hopefully he will continue to like the sippy.

Puffy Heart for Puffs

We started puffs to let Ethan practice his pincher grip a few weeks ago. We have the Gerber puffs and then a much smaller rice puff (organic!) made by Nature's Choice that we imported from the states. It was really fun to watch him as he learned to pick up the puffs. He first tried to rake the puff into his hand and then try to suck the puff through his closed fist. When he couldn't get at it, he would then use his other hand (so as to not lose the precious puff trapped in his hand) to grab another puff and do the same thing. By then he realized he could not eat the puff this way and then would open one hand slowly and try the shake it from his hand but it would be stuck. I would intervene at this point and the whole process started again. But after a few tries he now can pick up the Gerber puff between his thumb and pointer pretty easily. Just this week he became really good at picking up the the smaller puffs (they are like fat rice grains). I used to have to hold it upright for him since they were so small and then he could then grab it from my fingers, but now he is okay at eating them himself.

Watching him eat is really fun (or else motherhood has really dulled me down). Once he ate a puff and then it popped out of his mouth and got stuck on his chin. He frantically searched his hands and table tray for the missing puff but it was stuck to him the whole time. LOL.

Separation Anxiety

This week Ethan started getting separation anxiety and it was a pretty serious case. I think it was caused by all the changes in home environment (we have moved twice in the last month) and then the changes within the family (last Sunday my mom and brother left and then the next day Bob went to Singapore for business). So it was just me. I think he thought I was going to disappear too. It was pretty bad for awhile, he wouldn't sleep well again. And if I went to his room to pat and rock him for a bit when he cried at night, he would start crying extra hard when I left. During the day if I had to go fetch something he would start crying - even if the item was in the same room. All I had to do was get up from the floor from where we were playing and he would be upset. So I resorted to carrying him around with me for a few days. That was rough! But now I think he is much better. He will whimper for a bit if I get up to leave now, but then will go back to playing. And he is back to sleeping well at night. Hopefully he will be out of this phase soon!


A Few Of My Favorite Things
Favorite Food: Hmm...tough call. He goes pretty bonkers for anything mixed with banana, but he eats everything with gusto, even the gross meat dinners. I have been making all his food so far up until this week when I introduced meat. It was pretty daunting to me to make homemade meat puree so I started with Earth's Best meat dinners. Everything homemade tastes much better for sure, but the jarred dinners are just not good at all even though he seems to like them. So I guess this weekend I'll be making some chicken and beef meals for him to try.
Favorite Book: Sparkle board books and books by Leslie Patricelli (of which he likes Yummy Yucky the best. Figures since it is all about food). I also think he really enjoys story time now. Before he would just like to grab the book and gnaw on it, but it seems he really likes to look at the page and listen to the story now.
Favorite Toy: The maracas and banjo on the Leapfrog Learn and Groove Activity Table. Also he loves the springy bird on his booster seat tray.
Favorite Non-Toy: The laptop, and water bottles filled with food colored water, or filled with objects that rattle. Oh and glasses. He loves to grab the glasses off someone.
Favorite Way To Make Him Laugh: Kissing his neck! He totally cracks up when you kiss under his chin. He will lean his head back so that you can kiss him, then laugh and turn his head the other way so you can kiss the other side. So cute!
New sounds: Ba Ba, Ya, Da Da, Da Di and Ummmm (when eating solids). He said Ma once or twice but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet. He did say Da at 5 months and it wasn't until now that he started babbling it constantly, so I think I have a few months to go before I get to hear Ma Ma and then quite a while probably before he actually says it in reference to me. I can't wait!