Reid is 8 months old!

I know he turned 8 months on Thursday, but I finally got the pictures taken today, so hence the post.

The picture above is my favorite. I love the simpleness. He almost looks too serious! Of course, it wouldn't be a monthly photo shoot photo without the monkey, so here you go.







In that last one, he's watching Jack to see what he'll do next. Jack and Steve both helped out making Reid laugh during the 5 minutes we took pictures. That's about how long Reid can sit before he gets tired and starts to wobble over.

In the last month, Reid has perfected his rolling. He really only likes to roll one way, from his front to his back over his right arm then back to his front over his left arm. But he can get pretty much anywhere he wants to be using his technique of rolling and spinning. He has gotten out of his room and the down the hall to our room all by himself. He is also pushing up more, so I think crawling will be coming soon. He just has to figure out how to get his knees underneath him and support his weight on them. Overall, he does not like to be contained.

He loves to stand up if you hold him. I'll hold him under the arms, and he'll raise his arms and smile or laugh. Then we all say "Yeah" and he laughs some more. As you can see in the photos, he can sit by himself a little. He can't get into the sitting position by himself yet though, so I don't sit him up too much. I want him to learn how to get there by himself so he can also get down by himself. Right now, he's fallen over a few times and conked his head. He doesn't like that much even though he loves to sit.

He plays with his toys more actively now too. He'll roll across the room to get to his ball or the rings he likes to chew on. He also likes to get Jack's crocs or the remote, and he'll cry if we take those away. He's developing definite likes and dislikes, and he's not afraid to let us know what they are.

As for food, he is progressing through the baby foods. He seems to have mastered eating from a spoon, and we are in a good routine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also has had lots of fruits and vegetables now. He seems to really like bananas. But without going into too much detail, we are on a break from bananas and focusing on prunes right now, for which he is developing a taste.

Sleep is the other big thing we are working on now. I finally hit my point of extreme exhaustion, and after re-reading the chapter in "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," we are letting Reid cry it out at night. He was waking up 2 or 3 times at night, and sometimes he would stay awake just to interact with us. Last night was the first night we did the cry-it out system. Overall, Reid did pretty well. He never cried for more than 30 minutes straight, and he only had about 4 or 5 wakings. However, Jack woke up crying several times last night. It was very bizarre since Jack usually sleeps very well through the night. Steve did the brunt of the work, so he was tired this morning. I tried to help with Jack, but we both ended up in there with him several times.

We're hoping tonight goes better, and maybe by the end of this next week, we'll all be sleeping soundly and restfully. Then maybe I can get back to writing more often instead of stealing moments of sleep every chance I get!