little mister is 8 months old

yup, that's right, it's been 8 months since this little man came into the world.  i freaked out a little when i realized that in just 4 short months he will be one year old.  wth?  and now i am dreaming of newborns all over again like my mind was erased or something.  not that having a newborn is bad, but for me it was the most difficult time compared to the other months.  so anyway, in the past month mr z has really grown up so much.  his personality is really coming out strong and he is learning and mastering so many skills, like nunchuck skills and computer hacking skills.  he is very good at grabbing things and getting them into his mouth, except for his puffs.  he can probably get puffs into his mouth about half of the time, so that's not too bad.  but he is still working on his pincer grasp.  he is a pro at rolling.  he rolls all over the floor, angling his body to get to his target.  he is bossy and a little shouty if he doesn't get what he wants, like the food!  he wants.the.food.NOW!  it makes me chuckle.  he makes me chuckle a lot these days especially when he crinkles his little face up and snorts through is nose, when he giggles and screams in joy, or even when he gets mad and starts kicking his feet.  i loves him.  i'll get onto the monthly update, otherwise i could gush about him all day:

-growth: he is in 9 month and 9-12 month clothes (don't you just love how there is really no standard measurement for clothing and you just have to guess as to whether it will fit, especially for a baby, because for real you're not going to make the kid try on the clothes before you buy them), he is getting long and is adding a little chubbiness.  i haven't weighed him for awhile, but i am guessing he is probably close to 17 lbs now and he must be around 30 inches long.  still has lots of hair, and his curls on either side of his ears are getting ridiculous.  you'll see them in some of the pics below.  i am tempted to snip them off soon so that they are the same length as the rest of his hair.

-development: sitting up like a boss, rolling around all over the place and getting closer to lifting himself to a sitting position from laying down, he does spend a good amount of time on his tummy but he doesn't seem interested in crawling yet, although he reaches and tries to scooch himself towards something he wants like a toy or a power cord.  he knows who he is and knows who mama and baba are.  when my in-laws were here last month we kept asking baby z where grampa was and he would turn to look at his grampa, he is a genius...ok so he only did it 3 times, but hey!  he gets so excited when baba comes home and kicks his feet and gives baba a big smile.  he has been saying dadadadada for awhile (it doesn't mean dada like dad because we don't call my hubby daddy we call him baba) and now he says babababababa and babbles really loudly all day.  oh, and the sweetest thing!  he recently learned how to give kisses.  so if i tell him to give mama a kiss he will lean over open-mouthed and plant a sloppy baby kiss on me.  and he gives baba kisses, too.  they are usually solicited, in fact i think the only person he has given kisses to without them asking is his greaty auntie 'nette, and that is pretty special.  oh, we have him in the big boy bath tub, i think i mentioned that last month, but just recently he started to roll over in the tub onto his tummy and he kicks his feet.  he also loooooves to kick his feet and move his arms around splashing the water ALL over the place.  another funny thing he does, i have no idea where he got this from, but when his diaper is being changed, he will wiggle his bum back and forth on the substrate (the floor, the changing pad, whatever his butt is on) kind of like a dog.  i don't know if you've ever seen a dog do that, but that what z looks like.  it's hilarious.  i think he will make a great salsa dancer one day with that back and forth hip action.  oh, and i am pretty sure his first tooth is finally cutting through on the bottom, i can feel a little sharp thing there with my finger.  nursing should be interesting when that thing pops up.

-modes of transportation: still rolling around everywhere, i think he is good with that for now, he doesn't seem to be trying to crawl, although he has recently started semi-army crawling a few times.  i'm not really in a rush for him to start crawling, since he already gets into so much stuff just by being able to roll around.
-sleep:  well daylight savings time kind of messed us up a bit but he generally goes down by 7:30-8:30 and wakes up between 7:30-8.  he mostly still wakes up twice a night to nurse but then goes right back down to sleep.  thank all that is holy he has been napping pretty consistently.  he naps around 10 or 10:30 in the morning for about an hour and will nap around 3-4 in the afternoon for a bit.  unfortunately, for him to actually sleep that long i have to hold him or be near him, but that's ok for now.  i want him to continue napping consistently and then i'll work on getting him to nap on his own.
-nourishment:  he has been eating more food.  i am trying to make his food more chunky to get him used to eating finger foods.  he still eats mostly fruits, veg, and rice or oat cereal, but we do feed him some meat sometimes, have started giving him cheese and will sometimes give him yogurt, hummus, avocado, stuff like that when we have it on hand.  i started giving him those multi-flavored puffs (like the spinach and apple ones) so that he could get used to gumming food, and in about 2 weeks he had gone from just figuring it out to munching on whole puffs like a pro.  oh, and those yogurt drops, too.  so now we are starting to give him really small pieces of our dinner and other finger foods.  they don't make up the majority of his meal, but we give it to him after his main meal so that he can practice feeding himself and gumming up larger chunks of food (but they are still really small chunks).  and he still nurses about 6 or so times a day.

-personality: he is like another person in the house now instead of just a baby.  that probably sounds weird.  but, he is starting to leave the babyhood stage and is really becoming a little boy.  especially in the last few weeks, it's amazing.  he plays and rolls and babbles all day, he sits up in the shopping cart and "talks" to people in the store, his personality is big.  he cracks us up and makes us exasperated all within the span of 7 seconds.  he is a funny guy.
-likes: kicking things, rolling around, splashing in the bath, jumping in his bouncy seat, his new buddy scout the puppy, trying to get electrical cords, going outside, sitting in the grocery cart, eating, percussion
-dislikes: having his face wiped, being told no, being restrained, getting strapped into the carseat after a bunch of fun somewhere like the store, going to sleep, bonking his head
-me: i am comfortable in momhood right now, and am relishing the last couple of weeks that i have at home before starting school again.  i look at my little guy and how fast he is growing and it makes me a little sad, but also really excited to spend the rest of my life as his mama, to see the kind of kid and later the man he will grow up to be. 

so that's my big little guy.  he is lots o fun.