Monday, August 6, 2012

My 8 month of bundle of joy...

Even without a full-time job outside the home, life is so busy.  I sometimes wonder how I did it all when I was working (the answer to that is, I didn't, and definitely not well).  I still struggle to have time to do things I want to do, like update this here blog.

I've been writing a lot more for Cross Moms - all of my Christmas in July posts are over there.  That series has been such a wonderful blessing to write.  It has kept me in the Word on a more consistent, regular basis, and has taught be SO much about God's character.  If you haven't had a chance to take a look, I'd love for you to pop over and read them.

Anyhow, my writing over there has kept me busy, and with an 8 month old who has now nearly mastered army crawling and needs more constant attention, I have a little less time on my hands.  My wonderful, wonderful husband took a morning off today, and has blessed me with a little bit of time to myself.  I absolutely love spending time with my boys, but it's nice to be able to get away and recharge every once in a while.  After a doctor's appointment, my morning has been spent in the cafe at Barnes and Noble, with a frozen strawberry lemonade, and time to pick out a good book and blog.  So, without further ado, here's a bit of an update on my precious little one and all that's going on in his 8 month old life.

Mobility:  As mentioned, Eli is army crawling and moving like crazy.  You can't take your eye off of him for a minute.  He's curious and into everything.  Both my mom, and a friend who has two daughters told me that their girls were never so wild.  Such is the life with a boy I suppose, and Eli is ALL boy.  He wiggles and squirms and hardly likes to sit still a minute.  He's able to go from sitting to standing on his own (pulling up on things) and can go from sitting to crawling and back to sitting again.  It's been fun to watch all his new moves (though, I honestly wasn't encouraging the crawling, as I knew that would mean the end of life as I know it).

Food:  Eli has been eating solid foods since a little past 6 months.  He has tried avocado, banana, applesauce, pears, plums, carrots, sweet potato, squash, green beans, peas, and, recently, chicken.  He's a great eater and has liked everything except the avocado so far.  Pretty much made all of his food, which hasn't been bad.  He's currently eating two meals a day (breakfast and dinner) and we're planning to add in solids at lunch around 9 months.  We've been taking it slow, and still mostly focusing on nursing at this age.  Speaking of which...

Nursing:  Is still going well.  Since I finished the school year, Eli rarely gets bottles, but he still takes one or two every now and then, and is a champ about going back and forth.  He nurses pretty frequently during the day (3-4 hrs), but only gets up once at night.  The night before last he slept 12 hours straight, which was a first.  He is a very distracted nurser as of late though - he wants to look all over, make faces and noises and ensure that he isn't missing anything.  A few people have asked how long we plan to nurse, and I don't have a definite answer.  Right now, I'm thinking definitely past a year, but I guess the best answer is, as long as we both want to.

Sleep: Is going SOOOOOO well, and I am incredibly thankful.  Sleep hasn't always been easy with Eli, and we were hoping to avoid him having to cry it out for long periods of time, but also wanted to be sure he developed good sleeping habits (including the ability to go to sleep on his own).  I'm happy to report that he regularly, and consistently puts himself to sleep with little to (usually) no tears.  Crying is the exception rather than the rule, and even when he does cry, it's usually just 2-3 minutes, if that.  He puts himself to sleep without any rocking, screaming or even nursing at naps and at night.  It has NOT always been this way, and I am so glad for the progress he's made.  It makes for a much happier household.

Other:  Eli is such a blessing and an amazing source of joy.  I truly can't imagine life without him and am thankful God knew better than our plans.  My life has changed in so many ways and it is better than I could ever imagine.  Sure, we have rough days, money is tight, and there are struggles, but I wouldn't change a thing.  8 months (plus) after his arrival, we are more in love with our little one than we ever thought possible.

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