Noah Ryan - Month 8

No update on your stats, your well check is next month!

AT EIGHT MONTHS YOU ARE:
-Still sporting the toothless smile!
-Saying "mama" on repeat!
-Giving Dad the best high-fives
-Clapping, smiling, and laughing all day long with your crazy sisters
-Practicing your pincer grasp
-Happily sitting still vs. crawling
-Very curious - you grab for everything you can get your hands on.
-Officially a tummy sleeper

HEALTH
No update here - other than a few runny noses you've been pretty healthy this month.

EAT

You love to eat!  Right now your typical schedule looks like this:

5-6am - wake up for a 6oz bottle, but you easily fall right back to sleep

8am - wake up and eat breakfast - usually a jar of purees and some table food.  Blueberry waffles, bananas, peanut butter toast, and pineapple are some of your favorites.  I usually feed you a bottle with breakfast before we leave for the day, it just depends on when/if you woke up to eat during the night.

12pm - Lunch, 1-2 jars of purees

1pm - 6 oz bottle before nap time

4ish - 4-6 oz bottle and snack

6pm - dinner, 2 jars of purees and a taste test of whatever we are eating for dinner

7pm - 6 oz bottle before bed

SLEEP
It's been so nice to be able to get back into a routine after the chaos of the holidays.  You are down to just waking up once around 5-6am for a night time feed and I'm okay if that feeding hangs on for a while because it means you usually sleep until 8-8:30am.  You are usually ready for a nap around 10 and if we are home you will sleep for an hour or so, if we are on the go a quick 20-30 min cat nap usually helps you make it through lunch.  You usually nap every day from 1-4ish and then are ready for bed around 7.  You are such an easy baby when it comes to sleep (and pretty much everything else) I lay you down completely awake and you just roll over and put yourself to sleep.  You are following your sisters' footsteps in the sense that you love your pacifier.  You usually have one in your mouth and like to hold one in your hand as a back up to help you fall asleep.

LIKES & DISLIKES

You love attention, looking at yourself in the mirror, playing with toys, your sisters, eating and chewing on anything you can get your hands on, bath time, and swinging at the park.  You aren't a fan of snow balls to the face, getting tackled by your sisters or dog, falling over, having a poopy diaper when you are supposed to be sleeping, or when the Steelers lose - but frankly, I don't blame you :)

PERSONALITY

I've said it 100 times but I'll say it again, you are THE BEST baby.  You are by far the easiest right now, so content, flexible, and always so happy.  I love this stage that we are in where you are so curious, so playful, and so easily entertained.  It never fails that you make a friend every where we go.  I am always getting stopped by the youngest and oldest of strangers, that's right you get most of your attention from young kids and grandparents that stop to tell me how cute you are.  Then, you put the icing on the cake by showing them that toothless grin of yours.  I can't believe in a few short months we will start planning your first birthday party, time please slow down!   

FAVORITE MOMENTS
-We celebrated your first Christmas and it was so much fun!  You got a new high chair, some clothes, a baby walker, toy cars, and a "My Family" board book.  You also loved Bella's pink Mercedes, even more than she does I think!

-We got 11 inches of snow (which is a crazy amount for us!) and you got to play in it for the first time.  You seemed to really like it until you got smacked in the face with a snow ball.  You were not a fan of that, but who is?!?
-We took your first trip to DC for Brian and Carla's surprise engagement dinner.  Your sisters stayed behind with the sitter, but you came along and spent the evening partying with your Godmother Leah while we went to dinner.  It was a quick trip, but so much fun celebrating Uncle Brian and Carla!