8 Months

Ocean continues to be a happy little guy who is lots of fun to have around. He's hitting the age where personality becomes more pronounced and increased mobility brings more freedom. For him, anyway. It brings more worries for Mr M and I.

River was tickling Ocean- what a great picture :)

At the beginning of the month Ocean was combat crawling and face plant crawling and he could almost push himself up into a sitting position. By the end of the month he had progressed to elephant crawling (up on his toes) and full on crawling on his knees. He could only manage a few synchronized movements at a time, but that rapidly increased.

Despite that, he loves exploring and thinks he's a big kid now and tries to keep up with Sunshine and River. Picture little Ocean crawling frantically after Sunshine and River as they walk or run through the room to their next adventure. It won't be long until he actually can keep up with them.

All the wiggling and moving around resulted in Ocean frequently getting stuck under chairs or in corners. Those occasions were invariably followed by cries of frustration as he tried to figure out how to get out of his predicament.

just one of the uncomfortable positions he's found himself in

Crawling gave Ocean the confidence and muscle control to push himself into a sitting position and to try to pull himself up on furniture. Of course he doesn't have great balance and control yet, so he frequently tips over and bumps his head. The poor kiddo is trying to catch up to the number of bruises big brother has gotten.

Ocean loves eating, though he hasn't gotten the hand-eye coordination down yet to feed himself. I've been trying to remember what ages I had Sunshine and River feeding themselves, and I don't remember. I know it was messy..... I just need to get over the mess and let him have at it.

messy food pictures aren't quite so gross in black and white

He doesn't have any teeth yet, but they're moving again (have been for awhile now, off and on). Since he's still breastfeeding I have no problem with him getting his first teeth later rather than sooner.

Ocean now has the distinction of being the youngest of our kiddos to go to the doctor for a non-well-baby check (I'm not counting all his hearing/ENT tests since they're not with our regular pediatrician). Sunshine's earliest sick appointment was when she was 2 or 2 1/2 for an ear infection. River still hasn't been in for a sick appointment. The crud we passed around this past month gave poor Ocean a cough that he couldn't kick. It was bad enough that he was choking up as he coughed. The doctor said he was sounding wheezy (but not infected), so she prescribed an inhaler to help open up his airways. The first few times he used it he just laid there and breathed through the mask, but once he started feeling better he started fighting it. Thankfully the inhaler helped a lot and we only had to use it a few times.