Monroe Is 8 Months Old

Monroe has a lot of new stuff going on lately. Check it out...

First up: sleep. He/we dropped the dream feed(!) which means that he now sleeps from about 7:30pm to about 7:30am. I was a little nervous to do this because he'd been sleeping so nicely from the 10:00 dream feed until morning, but I started to just feel like it was time. So, we pulled the trigger and besides a couple little shout-outs the first few nights, he hasn't looked back. We're still in the process of dropping his third nap, which basically means that he takes a third nap about every other day. It's actually easier for me when he takes the third nap because it's right when I'm making dinner and lets just say it's a bit easier to make dinner without a (tired) baby vying for my attention.

Next: crawling. Yep, the kid is on the move and he's generally pretty pleased with his new accomplishment. It felt like it was on the cusp of happening for so long and now he is unstoppable. He loves to follow his brothers around (which they have varying degrees of patience for) and keeping the doors to stairs closed is already a challenge. When Conway started crawling, we just child-proofed those doors so that Parker couldn't open them. The child-proofing doesn't work on Parker anymore, though, so it takes a lot more vigilance from us grown-ups. Watching Monroe crawl from one thing to next, move to a sitting position to play with whatever he found, and then crawl to the next thing he fancies is pretty fun to watch.

Also: he's an eating machine. Monroe hasn't mastered picking up food with his thumb and pointer finger (the pincer grip), but no matter. He just gets whatever piece of food is in front of him in his fist, puts his whole hand in his mouth, and opens it. It doesn't look real graceful, but it does seem to be working for him. Mostly he's still partial to eating pureed foods, but he'll put bits of just about anything that's put in front of him into his mouth.

And then: separation anxiety. Monroe loves his Mama. What can I say? We spend a lot of time together. Don't get me wrong. He certainly loves his Papa as well and he's  still pretty generous with his smiles for almost anyone. Much of the time, though, if he sees me he wants to be touching me in some way even if that simply means laying across my lap while I sit on the floor.

Oh, and: another tooth. One of Monroe's top, front teeth is coming in and it's been a rough several days. Maybe the teething is at least partially to blame for his newfound need to be held all the time - or at least I hope so.

Finally: he's still cute. Just in case you were wondering. 😊

P.S. Conway is Eight Months Old