Charlie: Eight Months

(October 4, 2013)

^^ I wish you could hear the squeaks coming from this kid. We did the pics out on the porch and Charlie was loving it! 

^^ I think it's going to get harder to get these elephant pictures since this little bug wants to explore and not just lay there!

^^ That little tooth just kills me! And those ankles are crossed about 80 percent of the time. 

^^ He's working on his push ups! Gotta keep that body looking like the Hulk.

^^ He is just a little roly poly and cruising all over the place these days. He's not crawling on his knees but he definitely moves around the whole living room. I guess it's time to baby proof.

^^ Normally I keep my phone away from this kid at all costs because it's too expensive to be a toy and as shown here, he sticks everything in his mouth. But I really wanted to get just a few pics of him sitting up and he was over taking pictures and also I'm a total pushover.

I can't believe our baby son is already eight months old! Charleston is just growing so fast. We love him more every day!

Sleep: He went through a bad little phase of waking up around eleven pm after being asleep for about two hours which was rough! But we adjusted his bed time a little and now he's going to bed closer to eight. He sleeps about 12-13 hours waking up once or twice to nurse. But the BEST news is that is he is napping in his crib. I feel so dumb about this! It was definitely long overdue to get him napping in there instead of his swing. I just have the hardest time letting him cry it out! But finally I just decided to do it and get it over with. Well he only cried/fussed 45 min the first day, 30 the second and now he just goes right to sleep. We just started this week though so I know there might still be changes but for now he's doing great!

Eat: He eats a lot more solid food throughout the day now which is so nice! Still nurses every few hours but if we're out and about we can give him some snacks to get him through. He loves crackers and bananas. It's so fun to watch him taste something new.

Wear: Still in size fours which I hope will last a while. He wears pretty much all twelve month clothes now but he has slowed down a bit I think. It's started to cool off here so it's been fun to start putting him in sweats and long sleeves. But really it's just fun to dress him! Haha.

Play: He has started really playing and it's so fun! He can sit on the floor by himself now and I can surround him in toys and keep him entertained for at least ten minutes. ;) No, really he loves playing with toys and loves to scoot around on the floor. One of our baby showers was a book shower so we got tons of books for Charlie and about half were board books which he LOVES. He loves when we read them to him but he also loves to "read" them himself. It's funny because he chews on pretty much everything in sight but for some reason he doesn't chew on his books. Not yet at least!

• 21 1/2 pounds and 30 inches 
• I think the biggest change is he now has four teeth!! 9/28 bottom left, 9/29 top left, 10/7 bottom right, 10/10 top right. They make him look so much more grown up and I think it's so cute. He has bitten me a few times while nursing. That will make you cry! But he's learning. Ha. I'm just hoping we can make it long enough that we can just go straight to milk so that's really only a few more months. But I guess we will see. I'm really proud of us for making it this far! 
• He had a play date with a new little friend who is also named Charlie. I wasn't sure how it would go since he's not exactly old enough for play dates but it was fun! We went over to their house and the boys were so excited to see another baby cruising around. Plus it was fun for me to get to know the other Charlie's mom!
• We got him a new bath tub which is a little blow up thing you put in the bath and he loves it! Our bath tub has those dumb sliding doors and it was really hard to give him a bath in there since I really had to hold on to him the whole time which is difficult with those doors in the way. But this tub is great and prevents him from tipping over and whacking his head on the sides of the bath.
• He really loves to swing. There is a park within walking distance and while the weather has been nice the last few weeks we have taken him over there a couple of times and he really likes it! 
• He learned how to clap! It's the cutest thing ever. I don't know where it came from but one day he just started clapping! And now he will respond to us clapping. So fun. 
• Every day when Trav gets home from work Charlie gets so excited. It's the cutest thing ever and I think Trav likes it a little bit too. ;) 

We just love our little punk. Every night when we are going to bed one of us will go in and check on him to make sure he's covered up and not tangled in the crib and almost every time we end up going to get the other one to come look at him because he's just so dang cute. And almost every night I tell Trav we should just bring him to bed with us so we can snuggle him. He always says no! Haha. We are such cheese balls over this baby of ours. We don't care though. We love it and we are so happy this little cutie came to live at our house!