8 months of joy

This is Elijah at Baby Bookworms. An awesome program at our local library for infants to age 2. He LOVES it; his new favorite thing to do. The librarian reads some stories, we have a snack, have mom and baby sing along songs and puppet play. He loves watching the other babies crawl walk and babble around. He will soon be picking up all kinds of new tricks I'm sure.
8 month stats:

Eli's not doing what I would call an orchestrated crawl but he doesn't let that slow him down. He gets most anywhere he wants to eventually. We now hold crawling practice daily since we've been watching the other babies at Baby Bookworms do it. Poor guy had been having to figure it all out himself with no examples before our new social outing.

Baby Bookworms has also spurred a new love. Books of course. He wants to hold one all the time...nursing, strolling, eating, etc....

We just moved Eli to his own room. And, he is now sleeping 7 or 8 hrs a night at least and last night (closer to 8 1/2 months) he slept 11 hrs! Hallelujah! He also has a clear tell of when he's sleepy. He pulls his hair and give himself this mad scientist look. It's especially cute when he pulls the tuft of hair in the back and creates a rooster tail coif.

At his last dr.'s appt he weighed in at 18 lbs 11 oz and 28 inches long. Still no teeth! and no signs of any.

**8 month stories**
Eli has developed a new talent. He now knows how to gag himself. He discovered it by accident, but after my initial startled reaction to him, he continued to do it for days afterward. Even at the dr.'s office. The nurse (after seeing him do it) responded, "they all learn how to do that eventually." What?! It's so hard not to laugh.

After an especially tumultuous afternoon of fighting sleep. Mom and baby were at our wits ends and completely frustrated with the other. I offered Eli a bitter biscuit as a last resort thinking, perhaps this will help. Eli grabbed the graham cracker and gummed it with a slobbery mouth. He then looked up at me with red tear-streaked eyes, smiled his toothless grin and held the gummy cracker up to my mouth for a nibble. My heart melted and we enjoyed our snack together.

Quite the brilliant baby, understanding different properties of states of matter still elude him. Elijah was entertained endlessly during bath time not long ago trying to "catch" water from the faucet.

Oh, and a little product-find endorsement. Flour sacks (bought at wal-mart or the dollar store in 5 or 3 packs) make the PERFECT baby bibs. they are huge, cheap and cotton. I tie it around Eli's neck and let him go to town on his dinner. They cover his entire chest and lap during a meal and afterwards I wash it out in the sink and soak it in a pail of water. When I have a load of laundry I toss it in. For stubborn stains, I add some bleach. Hmm, wonderful.