{Lincoln 8 months, Caroline 8 months, Evan 8 months}

Finnegan had a rough day today. There was a lot of crying. Like, a lot. Way too much. He’s started crawling and pulling up on furniture, which is exhausting when you’re a super chunk. Then his sleep schedule got thrown off and it was too late for his nap but too early for bed, so it was time for lots and lots of crying. I’m hoping he might actually be tired enough tonight to sleep for more than 3 hours in a row. I would really, really love to sleep for more than 3 hours in a row.

USUALLY, Finn is a super cheerful baby. He loves people, he isn’t afraid of strangers and is happy to be carried around by anyone. He likes the stroller, he likes shopping carts, he likes when I wear him. He’s the fourth baby, he basically has no choice but to go with the flow. Except for now, when he’s working so hard to become a person that he forgets how to be chill.

The only thing he never forgets is eating. Finnegan eats so much he’s actually almost taking a bottle. That’s a huge accomplishment for one of my babies. He also eats: crackers, fruit, veggie sticks, rice, cheese, you know what, basically anything he can get into his face he will eat. Even if it’s not technically food. Paper is pretty high on his list of favorites. But all the solids haven’t slowed down the nursing at all, which is one of the reasons he’s up so many times a night and also why his thighs are so ridiculous. He wears 12-18 month clothes at minimum, and I’ve started taking stuff straight out of Linc’s drawers and put them on the baby.

Likes include food, nursing, standing up, crawling, knocking things over, the dog, the cat, his blankey, rolling, music, water, his feet, my feet, looking at new things, smiling, snuggles, dada, mama, his siblings, scratching me, pulling hair, laughing well you tell him not to bite.

Dislikes include being tired, falling on his face, getting stuck under the furniture, waking up alone, not being allowed to eat things he found under the couch.

How do you get an 8-month-old to stay in a chair for pictures? Physically push him down every 3 seconds. These are not all in focus because he is strong and fast.

Look at his filthy baby feet from walking around out on the porch. My inside floors are clean, but the porch is FILTHY.

8 Month Milestones

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Says “mama” or “dada” to parents (isn’t specific) – Is this really a skill most kids have at 8 months? He can say “mama” and “dada” but they don’t mean anything yet.
Passes objects from hand to hand – Yes

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Stands while holding onto something – All the time now, and he can almost always sit back down again
Crawls – He can crawl. He mostly does a one legged monkey scoot, like his brothers before him. But he isn’t as fast or as adventurous as previous kids.
Points at objects – No pointing.
Searches for hidden objects – Sometimes

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Pulls self to standing, cruises – Yes, mostly successfully
Picks things up with thumb-finger pincer grasp – Does it fit in his mouth? Then he will pick it up.
Indicates wants with gestures – No, he mostly just cries

I accidentally ruined Caroline’s 10 month photoshoot today. Instead of taking pictures during the middle of the afternoon when the light in the family room is best, I let her fall asleep in my lap while she was nursing and spent two hours petting her hair, sniffing the top of her head, listening to her tiny baby noises and watching her twitch as she dreamed.

So maybe “ruined” is the wrong word. Maybe “soaked up two magical hours worth of baby moments that hardly ever seem to happen anymore because she is growing up so fast” is more accurate. I love her bunches and bunches. It’s sort of disgusting.

I had to look back at the 9 month update to see if I was remembering things wrong or if she really has changed SO MUCH in just four weeks. In those pictures, you can just barely see one top tooth peeking through. Now she’s got two great big giant chompers on top plus two on the bottom and a handful more threatening to pop through any minute. Isn’t it crazy how much older babies look with teeth? SO MUCH OLDER!

She’s also walking, without encouragement, on almost any surface. She ran away from me during Stroller Strides this week and I had a “oh no, I lost the baby” moment. She was only 5 feet away behind a mom doing sit ups, but she’s so little she’s easy to lose. I’m going to have to work on the constant vigilance.

I’ve given up on super cute outfits, because between the crawling/walking, the drooling/teething and the constant shoving of food into her mouth she’s a mess. I change her shirt at least 3 times a day. And before you call me an idiot and suggest I use one of the five bazillion bibs I keep in the kitchen drawer I’ll tell you she feels about bibs the way Dora feels about using her inside voice. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. It’s easier to just buy stain remover in bulk.

There is not one thing about her I would change. I TOLD you it was disgusting.

Likes include her blankies (any of them), iPhones, popcorn, apples, boobs, her brother’s sippy cup, dancing, walking, smiling, blowing raspberries, peek-a-boo, books, baths, her mama and putting gross things in her mouth.

Dislikes include teething, hoods, falling on her face, being cold, missing naps, strange dogs and having her nails trimmed.

Milestones plus video proof of the walking/weird crawling below the epic number of underexposed pictures.

I see you

raspberries

This is a crap ton of orange, Mom

tippy toes

Happy 10 Months Baby Girl

P.S. Yes I am wearing leggings as pants in the video. In my defense…ah screw it. I have no defense. They’re SO COMFORTABLE.
10 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Waves goodbye – Yes. And hello. And loves to clap. And plays peek-a-boo and “how big is the baby?” and understands what I think is a surprising number of words. But I’m her mom so I have to think she’s a genius.
Picks things up with pincer grasp – As long as it’s food. Or trash.
Crawls well, with belly off the ground – She’s actually terrible at that. She crawls sideways on one leg. But since she’s, you know, WALKING I don’t think she’s actually missing this milestone.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Says “mama” or “dada” to the correct parent – She has said “mama” to me exactly twice, but not regularly, and I’ve never heard her say “dada”.
Indicates wants with gestures – Gestures, screeching, grabbing things. She has a lot of wants.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Stands alone for a couple of seconds – For a couple minutes.
Puts objects into a container – Does “food into her mouth” count? Because she’s good at that. Mostly she’s good at taking objects OUT of containers to make the biggest mess possible.

I want to start this post out by telling you that Caroline the best, cutest, smartest, most advanced baby ever in the whole world, but I know you would think I am just saying that because I am her mother and I am SUPPOSED to think she is the best and the cutest etc. And yes, that is true. But she also is a really, really awesome baby and if you were to come spend the afternoon with her you would also agree she is the best – except, of course, for your OWN baby, because obviously you feel the same way about your baby as I do about Caroline.

But I also don’t remember thinking these things about Little Evan as much. I thought he was the cutest and the best, but I was constantly worried he was behind in his development – not rolling soon enough or catching on in baby sign language class. Some of that was true – he did take longer to roll and crawl – but I suspect a lot of it was first-time mom worry-warting for no reason. In fact, I think I STILL spend a ton of time worrying that Evan might not be hitting his milestones as fast as other kids, while when I think about Caroline’s milestones I think “meh, she’ll get there.”

Wow, that was a lot of words to say what I really mean, which is Caroline is awesome. Other than refusing to take a bottle (ARG BLERG BLAH) she is the perfect baby – easy, predictable, happy, and a good sleeper. She gets up sometime between 5:30 and 7, takes a short nap almost exactly 2 hours later, is awake until around noon when she goes back down for her long afternoon nap (conveniently at the same time as Little Evan!). She wakes up again around 3 and is her happy, playful self when Daddy gets home from work and while I make dinner. We’ve started giving both kids a bath together right around 7 pm and Caroline is asleep before 8. She usually gets up to eat once at around 2 am, but occasionally needs me twice and even more occasionally she’ll sleep straight through. She still sleeps in the swing at night in our room, but it is broken and doesn’t actually swing anymore. I’m just too lazy to set up the pack’n’play. Mother of the year, right here. We run a nightlight and a white noise machine and the classical music on the swing for her to make up for it.

I have no idea how we fell into such a pleasant schedule so easily, but I suspect it had a lot to do with already HAVING a schedule with the toddler and Caroline being easy-going enough to just fit herself in. Sometimes I feel bad for that – I don’t want her to suffer from Second Child Inadequacy Issues – but she is so obviously loved by everyone she meets I think she’ll probably avoid therapy at least a few more years.

She is still kind of a peanut, wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes with an occasional 6-9 month sleeper or dress. I like to think she’s conveniently pocket-sized for those times I need to carry her while chasing a toddler across a playground. It’s nice of her to accommodate me like that.

Caroline’s favorite things include boobs, the dog, the cats, crawling, pulling up on things, eating mulch, swinging, Twinkle Twinkly Little Star, her brother, biting me with her one teeny tiny tooth and nomming on things. Dislikes include bottles, sippy cups, purees, falling on her face, the sun in her eyes and not being able to walk. It fills her with Baby Rage.

Other things that fill her with baby rage: being forced to pose for photo shoots. Although I may have gotten just a FEW shots to post. And by a few I mean a bazillion.

All my tutu pictures are out of focus, because she wanted to eat it.

There was a little girl, who had a little curl

You have a baby...in a camera bag!

7 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual. New chart this month!)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Sits without support – Yes, easily. We’ve reached the “oh just set her anywhere” stage where I don’t worry about putting a pillow behind her.
Drags objects toward herself – Yes, although it’s much more likely she’ll move herself towards an object.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Lunges forward or starts crawling – Crawls like a champ. She can do both a regular baby crawl and a funny half-sitting monkey butt scoot, where she has one leg up.
Jabbers or combines syllables – I swear on a stack of Twilight books she’s started saying “Mama”. I wouldn’t bet any money she actually MEANS mama, but she can say it.
Starts to experience stranger anxiety – My kids have never met a stranger they wouldn’t go home with, although today at the park a friend tried to hold Caroline and she was NOT HAVING IT. So maybe?

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Waves goodbye – No waving, but she can sign milk. Like I said, smartest baby ever.
Stands while holding onto something – Yes. Our hands, my leg, the couch, the bouncy seat. STANDING IS HER FAVORITE.
Bangs objects together – Well, she’s not going to be playing cowbell with the Blue Oyster Cult anytime soon but she could probably whack a couple sticks together if I gave them to her.
Begins to understand object permanence – If I am in a room and she is looking at me and I leave a room, she sometimes gets upset. She will crawl around a corner to look for me. But I don’t think she does that with anyone else, so it’s more likely “Oh no my food is too far away!”

Y’all. There’s something wrong with my bebeh. First it was chewing on anything made of leather. Then it was the carrying stuff around in his mouth. Now it’s this:

Do you want to know WHY he is doing that? It’s because the tile is cold and hard and his delicate little baby knees don’t want to touch it. On the one hand, those are some mad problem solving skills for a 9 month old. His little brain figured out how to avoid doing something he doesn’t like. This bodes very well for his survival in the world but not so well for my chance of getting him to mow the lawn someday. On the other hand, I want to tell him Dude, can you not SEE your knees? They’re the chubbiest little baby knees ever and if all that baby fat isn’t protecting you from cold hard things then I don’t know what it’s for.

Also, I am slightly jealous of his flexibility. I’ve always sucked at Downward Dog.

So if month 1 is an exhausted blur, month 4 you start to get the hang of things, and month 6 is when you can start buying them all the good toys, month 8 of baby care is when you no longer remember what sitting down feels like. In the past 24 hours, Baby Evan has:

– Eaten a piece of yarn
– Fell on the cat
– Pulled the recycling can over on top of himself
– Dumped all the dog food out of the bowl
– Ripped up a roll of wrapping paper
– Fallen on his head at least four times
– Hit himself in the face with the baby swing
– Hit me in the face with a baby hammer
– Pinched his hands under the rocking chair
– Tried to put a knitting needle through his ear
– Climbed onto the bottom shelf of the changing table and threw everything on it on the floor

And all of that was before E got home from work. At 2 pm. I picked the wrong month to (re)give up Diet Coke…unless I’m planning to replace it with speed. Or maybe breastmilk, because apparently it makes you super strong – the better to hit you in the face my dear – and super fast – the better to escape the confines of the baby gate. This afternoon while I was unloading the car Baby Evan actually managed to push the back door open a couple inches and was seconds away from falling right out onto the (cement) back porch face first. As much as I DON’T love his sharp little baby teeth, I think it’s better if we keep them intact for at least a few more years. He may actually need them for eating something someday. Not now, or tomorrow, or probably next week, but some day. I mean, he can’t exclusively nurse forever, right? NO baby has ever survived entirely on breastmilk until kindergarten…right? RIGHT??

So besides the violent puking, thrashing, gagging and general crankiness regarding solid food (or really, anything besides milk straight from the boob – still no bottles, cups, spoons, shot glasses or straws either) let’s see how he’s hitting his 8 month milestones:

Mastered Skills (most kids can do):
• Says “mama” and “dada” to both parents (isn’t specific) – No, not really. We’ve both heard “dada” or “daddy” but nothing even close to mama, unless High Pitched Screeching Velociraptor Noise is what he plans to call me.
• Passes objects from hand to hand – Check.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do):
• Stands while holding onto something – Lord does he ever, and he gets there on his own. The couch, the chair, the rocker, my leg, his play table, the baby gate, the handle on the stove, the dishwasher, your mom. Anything.
• Crawls – He finally got the hang of real crawling, which means my plan to tape a Swiffer cloth to his stomach is out.
• Points at objects – Meh? He reaches, but there’s no actual finger pointing.
• Searches for hidden objects – Do immaginary objects count? He is totally convinced I am hiding something WONDERFUL and DELICIOUS under the rug and one of these days he is definitely going to find it.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do):
• Pulls self to standing, cruises – See above for “pulls self up”. But he’s finally got the hang of cruising, although sometimes he forgets he has to move BOTH legs and unintentionally ends up doing a very impressive center split.
• Picks things up with thumb-finger pincer grasp – Then shoves them in his mouth, then throws up. Really awesome.
• Indicates wants with gestures – Not so much “gestures” as EAR-PIERCING SCREAMS. I took the disgusting car keys he was gnawing on away from him in Target yesterday and the noise he made sounded so much like the fire alarm he almost cleared the building. I hope he gets the hang of gestures soon.

Speaking of gestures, I’ve been meaning to watch that Baby Signs DVD my friend Amanda let me borrow and get started on making Baby Evan into a genius child. Or at least a child who understands the word “no” or “danger” or “for the love of GOD STOP PUTTING THAT IN YOUR MOUTH”. I felt a little silly signing to a baby that clearly didn’t understand the difference between actual sign language and crazy hand waving, but at this point I think I need to either really make an effort or just forget about it all together. I should at least teach him the sign for “nurse” – he’s GOT to understand that one at this point.