October!

We are crawling! First was the army crawl, and now Shaun is doing a combination of that and a normal crawl on his knees. See a previous blog for a video of the army crawl. He can also now sit back up from being on his tummy, back or crawling, which is new this month too. We also finally put up a gate in the house. We have been needing to do it for about a month now, since Shaun has been mobile via rolling. However getting a gate became more pertinent a couple of weeks ago because he can now move so fast. The gate is for the living room because that is where we are the most when Shaun is on the floor. Our living room is by itself, between two sets of stairs (I know, not very baby friendly), so we gated off the entry way to the room. We made sure to get a walk through gate so it is not a hassle to get through. Abby also has to get used to the gate because she is used to wandering the house as she pleases to get food, water, and most importantly into mischief! Hopefully the gate will help reduce her getting into mischief! We will get another gate for the top of the stairs eventually too.

Shaun also is pulling himself up. He loves to do it on anything that will allow him to, especially Daddy! I think he is going to be a climber….. We had to lower the crib mattress because he can pull up in there now too. Several times I have come into his room and he is standing in his crib waiting, sometimes quietly, sometimes not…

Shaun also has 8 teeth coming in! They just keep coming! He had a runny nose for a while due to teething and it still comes and goes and is a sign that more teeth are coming…

We had some fun gatherings for Halloween and a fun time at the pumpkin patch (see previous blogs). Shaun was a pumpkin. First was our dress up playgroup. A lot of Shaun’s buddies came in their costumes! What a cute bunch of 8 month olds! The second was a dress up day at baby class. I joined Shaun and Daddy while the class paraded around the hospital to show the nurses and staff their cute costumes. See the link at the right for October pictures.

We started doing baby sign language at 6 months. We are hoping that someday soon he will be able to do some signs back. We are doing signs like: eat, milk, all done, Abby (dog), mommy, daddy, etc to start with. He has learned to clap, so hopefully that is a good “sign”. Hehehe…. He gets so proud of himself sometimes and starts clapping and smiling, it is so cute!!

Nap time has become a struggle. He is taking short infrequent naps; some days, only 30 minutes, twice a day and other days he may take an hour at a time. Thankfully though, most nights he still sleeps well, going to bed at 8:30.

I can’t believe my baby is 8 ½ months old! He is growing and learning things so fast.