Pieces of Eight

Another month has flown by. Garrison is now 8 months (and seven days…oops) old. The days are seriously flying by. I know I'll blink and Thanksgiving will be gone and Christmas will be just days away. Moments later, my teeny, tiny baby will be turning one. It's been that kind of a year. I'm trying so hard to enjoy it all and soak it all in. Unfortunately, a lot of days I feel like a plate spinner…you know those people who spin multiple plates on pointy sticks for fun? That's what I imagine I look like, except a lot less graceful. So before I drop all the plates or enough days pass and he's nine months old, let's get this update together.

Nicknames: Bupsie, Bubba, Bubs

This is all the smile you're going to get mom...shoot fast.

Stats: I don't have an official height, but I did take him in for a weight check. He weighs 15 lbs 14.7 oz. I measured his height at home, and unfortunately it doesn't look like he's grown in height at all. Still about 25.5 inches. I'm telling myself that means a big growth spurt is coming. One thing I am not used to is dealing with short legs and arms. That has never been my issue. At 5'8, I've always been right at the line where I need tall pants even in flats, but my real problem has always been the length of sleeves. Sleeves are never long enough…so frustrating. And then I met my 6'9 husband who needs 36" inseams and wears size 14 wide shoes and my frustrations no longer seemed all that valid. Needless to say, we order a lot of clothes online in this family. I never dreamed we'd have a kid who needs his pants rolled up 2-3 times. New territory for us for sure. He's still wearing size 3-6 or 6 month clothes and size two diapers.

He loves his chirpy chicken.

Eating: We're still offering 5 ounces about every three hours, but he will eat well one bottle and then not the next, or eat everything in sight one day and then be completely uninterested the next day. He's eating about 20-26 ounces a day between the seven bottles we offer. I unfortunately did not get very brave or adventurous this month with baby led weaning. He's still eating avocados, pears, and occasionally bananas. We added sweet potatoes this month and he does like those a lot. He's eating two "meals" a day, but only 2-4 slices at each meal. He's just not a big eater. I hope to be more adventurous this month so that by nine or ten months he can eat a bit more of what we actually eat. That will make meal time a tad less stressful for all of us.

Naked baby enjoying some sweet potatoes.

Sleeping: Sleep continues to be the same…he's a pretty phenomenal sleeper at night and a super crappy sleeper during the day. Daycare typically tells me if he naps for more than thirty minutes like it's some kind of celebration. Some days he continues to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. There doesn't seem to be a reason, but it's pretty consistent: if he's going to wake up, it's going to be between 5 and 5:30 in the morning.

Those lips! Also note the cat sleeping on his butt.

Likes: Garrison's current obsession is standing. He learned to pull up about a week before he hit eight months and how he wants to stand ALL. THE. TIME. He has zero patience for sitting. Why sit when you can stand? He enjoys standing on the edge of his exersaucer and holding on to the side.

So Many Pumpkins...he was super over it at this point.
The opened-mouth, half smile was as good as he was giving.

Garrison has also perfected the art of the army crawl. He's sooooo close to really crawling, but for now, he's pretty dang fast at pulling with his arms. I think he's enjoying his freedom a good bit.

All-Most-There

Dislikes: This new freedom has ironically been paired with some SEVERE separation anxiety. I read that some babies will cry when mom leaves the room around this age. Garrison takes it to the extreme… if I move or even shift my weight in preparation to leave, he loses his ever loving mind. This has made our morning routine pretty miserable. I have been known on more than one occasion to load up the car without finishing my makeup or my hair just to drive around for 10-20 minutes to end the non-stop screaming. Thankfully, he does like the car again, so that typically works.

Beep beep. Out of the way.

Looking forward to: Well, Garrison is moving to a new class in daycare. While on one hand that makes me a little sad, on the other hand, I'm pretty proud. There are other babies who are younger than he is, but developmentally farther along in the new class. It makes me happy that he's catching up and meeting the milestones needed to move on. Fall has been wonderful thus far. I continue to look forward to more days with my little love. I'm seriously counting down the weeks until Thanksgiving when I'll get a nice little break from work and some serious time at home with my little man.