Hello 8 months.

I sort of skipped over Saul's turning seven months (as I have with most of everything else that happened in October--ouch), and here it is that he's now eight months. 

As far as I can tell, he is enjoying being eight months way more than he enjoyed being 7 months.  Seven months was a lot of I'm-super-sick-of-this-bouncy-chair-and-am-totally-bored-with-every-regular-baby-toy-you-are-giving-me.  So, now I just let him play with plastic bags and suck on my cell phone (which is what he's been wanting all along anyway) and he's been much happier.  Also, he can (basically) sit up on his own now (I tell you, my guys are little slugs for the first year--don't expect any crawling for another 3 months at least--and you don't hear any complaining from me about it).  He is rolling over quite a bit more now and can eventually get to something out of reach.  He's also discovered that he has a voice.  His favorite (and most effective) sounds are a loud squawking, that make me pretty sure that he's part pteradactyl, and a closed-mouth growl, that makes me think that he must be part leaf-blower.  In any case, he got us both ejected from observing Max's piano lesson this week. 

He's also become really interested in actual food.  Too bad that I'm not getting around to feeding him very much of it.  I'll admit, I'm so slow when it comes to introducing solids.  For one thing, there's part of me that feels like something's wrong about feeing a baby from a spoon when they can't even sit up.  But mostly there's the part of me that's just too stinkin' lazy.  Really, it's a huge hassle to get out the cereal, mix it with formula, get everything the right temperature, put on the bib, take 10 minutes to feed them two tablespoons of cereal and fight every bite with their trying to grab the spoon or pushing the food out of their mouth, then clean up the whole mess and wash the dish, wiping down not only the tray, but the baby, bib and everyone's hands....and then I still have to nurse him when we're all done. 

So I figure I might as well just go straight to the nursing....but don't worry, he's completely vitamin fortified as I'm supplementing with Cheerios.  I am taking full advantage of his now having mastered the pincer grip and the fact that he can be occupied for great lengths of time with a tray full of Cheerios.  It's no Gerber-baby-approved plan to skip straight over the rice cereal and all the pureed veggies and go straight to the Cheerios, but I say, three cheers for Cheerios!

While I'm in the mood for making up my own parenting rules about introducing food, maybe this week we'll go straight for the turkey with cranberry sauce. 

Is it just me, but I think that I see some Smith in this guy....maybe?

Over all, he's still Mr. Fantastic.