Thirtysomething: 8 Months

Thursday, April 03, 2008

8 Months

Rolo turned 8 months old on Tuesday and the last 4 weeks have been an explosion of new things. First, he started holding his own bottle. Then he starting rolling (damn it!). Then he started using consonants and he's got "ga-ga", "ba-ba" and "da-da" down pat, although he doesn't associate any meaning to any of these sounds. He's mastered sitting on his own, too. Well, he can't actually get into a seated position on his own, but once he's there, he sits like a champ.

He's long way off from crawling, and he's nowhere near pulling up on things. I can't say I'm worried that he's not the first to do things in his age group, but I am hoping he's not the last.

I started doing sign language with Rolo this month, which is to say that I do the signs and Rolo laughs at me. It'll be months before he really gets what I'm doing and time will tell if I stick with it.

Rolo gives big, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses upon request. He's been doing that the last couple of months secretly I'm pleased that he picked up on this so quickly, like maybe it's a testiment to how loved he feels. Although, he participates in "rough love". When he wants to kiss you, he grabs big chunks on skin on your face, or he grabs your ears or hair and pulls your head towards his, instead of bringing his to yours.

It's nearly impossible to read him a story these days, because he insists on closing the book. Or trying very hard to rip the pages out. So we've been reading exclusively board books and re-opening them every 30 seconds.

This past month, we celebrated both St. Patrick's Day and Easter. I've turned into the crazy mother at day care who has her baby in holiday related outfits for a full week. Having a kid makes every holiday more fun. My parents arranged an Easter egg hunt around their house. For a seven month old.

In February, as we transitioned from breastmilk (hey, look at that! I don't talk about my boobs anymore!) to soy formula, Rolo had this weird period of puking and on a whim I tried milk-based formula. After half an ounce, he started vomiting and then broke out into hives, huge welts on his face and neck. We made an appointment with an allergist and a couple of weeks ago we learned that Rolo is very allergic to milk and eggs. He won't get retested until he's two and hopefully, he'll outgrow it, but in the meantime, it means no milk or eggs, even as ingredients. Which means I've got to get good at some non-dairy baking.

Despite the fact that I complain too frequently about Rolo's 4am baby babble, or his rolling over in the middle of the night or his puking, the truth is I do that mainly because it's better fodder for a blog. Sure, sometimes motherhood is trying, but I've honestly been blessed with a most excellent baby. He's got a great disposition and I suspect that God took pity on me, giving me an easy one so that I would entertain having another one day. We'll see. But what I can say is that this little guy steals my heart every day.