Dear Ryan (8 months)

Dear little bug -

You are such a happy little man! I love your little 2-tooth smile - it's ridiculously adorable! I love that I get to spend every day with you and can't believe time has already gone so fast.

You are doing really well eating solids and eat them twice a day. You have some oatmeal and a fruit in the morning and then in the evening you have a veggie and fruit. In the morning you are a little more difficult to feed and usually don't open your mouth for mommy. I have to wait for your to smile or sometimes get upset so that little mouth opens and I can shove that food in. Once we get going you are ok with it. At night it is a different story and you are a little eating machine. You seem to eat best when we go out to eat and you sit in a high chair at the restaurant. You want to be just like the rest of us and eat a meal - so cute! Also, the whole sitting in a high chair at a restaurant is NEW too! We no longer have to get a sling to pull up to the table, you sit like a big boy in a highchair! You also sit in the grocery cart at the store and love it. 

We are working on sippy cups and you are doing well. You seem to be able to get the water out of it if I help you hold it up otherwise you just like to bang it around. You still love to grab my tervis tumbler and stick the straw in your mouth. It's pretty adorable.

Physically you are doing well. You are such a chunky monkey and weight about 16lbs but you feel so much heavier!  You sleep on your side or on your belly with your right cheek down (which probably feels good because thats the way you tilt). We are really working on getting rid of that tilt but it has been difficult. I try to lay you on the other side but you whip over so fast and get settled in the way you want. In other big sleeping news you are basically out of your swaddle - yes, we swaddled you until you were 7 months old! Now we just wrap you up in the swaddle and let your arms out and you seem happy with that. We just lay a blanket over you for naps. 

You are a much more of a social baby than you are physical. You give EVERYONE big ol melt their heart smiles. You chat and play and are so content to just sit and are not trying to move around like a crazy man. You are better at rolling over but still only like to roll over the right shoulder and not the left. You do go from front to back and back to front but sometimes your right arm gets stuck behind you and you can't get back on to your back. You love to sit up and you are SO good at it. You don't need your hands to help steady you and are so sturdy! We are working on trying to get you to be able to sit up on your own and of course getting you ready for crawling. We can help you get on to all fours and you rock back and forth (which is the first step).  You have recently taken a liking to standing up with our help. I am sure you will be pulling yourself up in no time!

Thumbs up:

Beads - OMG you love beads. They make you so happy and I love to let you play with them but you always want to put them in your mouth. I try to keep a paci in so that you can't but sometimes you figure it out and then I have to take the beads away.
Remote control
iPhone
Bubbles & toys in the bath tub
Shake Farm (iPhone app) You learned how to shake the phone to make the animals change! You do it really fast so I am not sure you completely understand what you are doing...but it seems like it!
Spinning - not yourself, but you LOVE to spin things now. There is a bird on your activity center, a frog on your jumper and the eye balls of the crocodile that you play with that you love to spin. It makes you so happy!

Thumbs down:

Mommy taking away beads, iphone or remote control. You actually started to get upset when I do this and I think its adorable but also makes me sad when you get upset. Luckily you are still so little bitty that I can quickly entertain you with something else.

Got your lion's tail!

I think this is a "Vassilaros" face...

 Still chewing on everything!

Right now I am most excited for the day when you can give me a hug and tell me that you love me, but until then I will give you lots and lots of hugs and kisses and of course tell you I love you multiple times a day! Love you bunches!