8 Months

Oh my goodness!!  Maddex is already 8 months old!  Where has the time gone?   I feel awful that I haven't been blogging about all of the cool things he does now!  It actually causes slight anxiety.  But at least I am getting some stuff out now!

So... this kid has 5 teeth now and another is in the works.  He got his first bottom two teeth at 4 1/2 months, the two front top ones broke through right around Valentine's Day when he was 7 1/2 months and the one to the right (his left) of the front two broke through on Sunday when he was just a few days over 8 months.  He is going to have one full mouth of teeth for his first birthday.

He hasn't figured out how to crawl forward yet.  If anything he scoots backwards while on all fours.  When he sees something he wants in front of him he reaches for it and falls flat on his belly.  He isn't coordinated enough to crawl forward yet!  Rolling is his go-to form of transportation at this point.  We have the gate up now so he can now safely roll all around the house if he would like!

He had his first ear infection over my February vacation.  He had a cold for a few days and then he had a really high fever.  When I brought him in his fever had gone up to 102.3 F.  After cleaning out his ears, which was torture for us, she could see that both ears were red and had fluid build up.  Luckily we caught the ear infection early so he wasn't in too much pain.  Also, while he was screaming she noticed his throat was red too.  The next day Kiel woke up and made an appointment at the doctor for his sore throat.  Turns out, he had strep.  I makes me wonder if Maddex had it too.  I felt so bad for my poor little guy.  Just so you know, I ended up with strep a few days later.  So we had antibiotics all around!

Maddex has become so lovable in the past two months.  He gives the juiciest open mouth kisses whenever I pick him up!  I love it!  Sometimes he gets so excited he pulls my hair so my head leans forward into his face so he can kiss me.  Our daycare provider says she has never seen anything like it before.  I guess he just loves his mama more than the typical baby!  He also kiss Kiel when he shaves!   Another cute thing he does is the tight squeeze every so often like a hug.  It is the best!  I love that he is such a cuddly and lovable baby!

He is also very independent when he goes to daycare.  What we have noticed is when we follow his typical daycare routine he is much better at playing by himself.  But when he is home with me for several days (like for the blizzard or my vacation) he becomes super clingy boy.  Clearly he is a clingy boy, he learned to say Mama during my first vacation with me over Christmas and he hasn't stopped saying it!

I've tried some finger foods with him (even though my doctor has said to wait until 9 months) and it hasn't gone very well.  He gags and doesn't seem to like the texture of it.  He has tried bananas, watermelon, puffs, and french toast.  His favorite was french toast, but he kinda choked on it.  Not bad enough for me to have to do anything, but he coughed it up.  So I guess I will continue to try things here and there and see what the doctor has to say when we go for his 9 month check up.

He is starting to pull himself up onto stuff and walk along those surfaces.  We no longer have a coffee table in the living room since he did so much rolling so he won't learn on that, but he has a little toy house that he pulls up on, the couch, and the side of the bath tub.  He loves watching the tub fill up with water. Now he is in the habit of walking to where I have the soaps and he knocks them all into the water.  I love little games like this.

We have entered the separation anxiety stage with full force.  As I said before, I saw it starting around 6 months when I was on my Christmas vacation.  For a while he only cried when I left him (like when I go into the kitchen even).  Now he cries for Kiel too.  Even if we turn our back to him and he wants our full attention he cries.  When Kiel drops him off at daycare, if Kim doesn't get him engaged he cries when Daddy leaves.  It is kind of sweet, but kind of annoying.  When I come home from something and need to run to the bathroom he screams cuz he wants me. So we have a bouncy chair all set up in the bathroom so he can be in there with me while I do my thing or take a shower.

I think in the last post I mentioned that he says Mama, Dada, and Kitty.  Well, he has kinda stopped saying kitty, but now it is very evident that he understand what Mama and Dada mean.  In my opinion, he uses Dada more appropriately.  He says Dada when he hears the garage door open (I've been saying "Daddy's home" when the garage opens since day one), when Kiel leaves the room and he wants him, and when he sees Kiel come in to a room.  Today I took a video that I will post soon of him standing at the window saying Dada as he watches Kiel snow blow.  He says Mama when he wants me or when he just wants something.  That probably has to do with the fact that I pretty much give him whatever he wants at this point.  I have to work on that!   He also mimics a lot of words right now.  We think we have heard him say yah, bye bye, hi, i love you, all done.  You know the typical things parents think their smartest baby in the whole wide world says.   Although he isn't saying many words it does seem like he is beginning to understand a lot.  He knows Mama and Dada (obviously), all done, Pesky, bath time, kisses, Maddex (another obvious one), and I'm sure there is more but I'm drawing a blank!  I really need to make sure I sign with him more.  I thought I would sign more once I got back to work and back into using my ASL brain, but the opposite has happened!  I am definitely signing a whole lot less.  Don't worry, he will be signing at least 5 things before his first birthday (which is less than 4 months away now!! EEK!)