8 Months!

This boy is growing up much too quickly for my liking.

Admittedly, I haven't been taking as many pictures of him as I used to.  This is because when I pull out the camera usually one of two things happen.  Either he freezes and stops whatever he's doing to look at me quizzically with the very same look on his face (always) just staring and trying to figure out what I'm doing with this fun looking thing in my hand. 

It looks kind of like this:

Although any face he makes is, of course, adorable I can only take the very same picture so many times, ya know?

If it's not the blank, quizzical stare, the other thing that happens is he does the complete opposite and totally ignores me.  Continuing to play or flail around as usual.

Again, anything he does is cute, but I can only have so many pics of him avoiding the camera! 

So what is this 8-month (nearly 9-month!) -old boy up to? 

It has been quite a productive month for Jack!  He's finally able to roll from his back to his tummy.  He has been rolling from tummy to back for quite a while, but before now he hasn't really shown much interest in being on his tummy unless we place him there.  Now, he seems to be getting interested in being on his tummy because I think he's preparing to crawl.  So he's now a rolling machine!  Flipping himself back and forth to get around.

He's not quite crawling yet, but in the last couple of weeks he has started to scoot himself around.  Mostly he turns around in a circle and moves backwards, but I really think crawling is on the horizon.  Scary and exciting!

He has started to babble more.  Before now, Jack's main mode of verbal communication involved squealing.  He loves to squeal and does so at the top of his lungs when he's happy.  He still does this, but now he's added in some syllables.  He now says, "BwahBwahBwahBwah", "BaBaBaBa", and "MaMaMaMa".  So far, I haven't noticed him associating the sounds with anything in particular, but it's so adorable to watch him make these new sounds and listen to him as he talks to himself over the baby monitor.

He can clap!  He does it all the time and we're working on doing it on cue.  When prompted he'll do it sometimes, other times he'll just look at you while you're clapping like a maniac trying to encourage him. 

He's doing great with food.  So far, he's enjoyed everything we've given to him and he loves to sneak bites of things we're eating.  It's getting increasingly hard to eat in front of him because he has figured out what it is we're doing and will stare at us longingly as we eat. 

Recently, we tried giving him some puffs.  So far, he's unimpressed.  He'll eat them if we put them in his mouth, but if we put them on his highchair tray he prefers to play with them rather than eat them.  He'll let them start to melt in his hand, resulting in puff-smelling hands for the rest of the day, or he'll toss them over the side to the dog, which she really enjoys.  We'll continue working on finger foods.

And yesterday was his very first Thanksgiving!  Gobble, gobble!  Here's a rare pic of the two of us together:

We had a successful first Thanksgiving as a family and I hope that everyone else enjoyed their Turkey Day too!