Eight Months

Henry passed the eight-month mark while we were in Seattle over the holiday weekend.  I have great pictures to post and lots to say about our trip but wanted to describe eight months before we get any closer to nine.

The bullet-point version of this month:

• Still no crawling, but he's so close!  I know, I said that two months ago.  Now he can get up on all fours, rock back and forth, and move one knee or one hand forward.  He just can't put it all together.  
• He's doing well with solids and will eat more or less anything.  He seems to prefer vegetables to fruit (what a weird kid) and likes when I feed him bits of my food in baby-bird fashion.  He still makes hilarious disgusted faces on the first couple of bites, even for foods he's had a dozen times before. 
• I think we're seeing the first indications of stranger and separation anxiety.  Even just a few weeks ago, when I left him in the morning, he didn't even notice.  Now he looks at me like, "just where do you think you're going?"  No tears yet, but when it eventually happens, Karl and I might have to swap drop-off/pick-up responsibilities.  Also, Elaine told me today that the two of them were waiting in line at the coffee shop, and Henry was laughing hysterically at her antics.  Then the woman behind her in line tried to elicit a laugh by making the same funny faces, and Henry immediately shut her down with a stone-cold stare like she was intruding on a private joke. 
• He babbles all the time and is especially emphatic when he is tired.  I think we have all the hard consonants now.  He also makes this great wild-animal noise that we refer to as The Call of the Henry.  We haven't been able to capture it on video yet, but it's sort of a trilling sound produced by forcing air out the side of his mouth.  I think it can only be reproduced by individuals lacking canines and molars.
• He has nailed the pincer grasp and now approaches all desirable objects with his chubby little index finger outstretched.   
• The desirability of an object is directly correlated with its potential to kill him.  He spends a good deal of effort trying to eat power cords -- hey, why waste time on something that could only electrocute or strangle you, when you could have both! He also likes to try to fling himself out of our arms, off the bed, and down the stairs.  Seriously, the kid has no fear.  I don't know how two such cautious people produced such a daring baby, but this one is gonna give Mama some gray hairs.
• Sometimes he gets in a mood where stuff is just plain funny.  One thing will set him off, and then everything elicits big fat-guy belly laughs, even when we stop trying to be funny.

The cuteness is almost overwhelming this month.  Of course, I found him adorable all along, but I find him extra delicious lately.  This definitely isn't the easiest he has ever been -- in many ways, he is more demanding than ever, requiring more assistance, more stimulation, more patience, and more bicep muscles than he did six months ago.  But the big blue eyes and inquisitive looks and mop of copper hair just make me melt every time.  Exhausting as he can be, I would happily pause him at this age for an extra couple of months.