Celebrating 8 months

Ralph's new "thing" today is a noise I can't quite replicate. Other than the new noise, it was a pretty uneventful day. It's been a pretty good week as Ralph has gotten back into the habit of sleeping all night - a habit we hope will continue for awhile. We stopped counting how many nights we woke up in the middle of the night.

Ralph has been making some progress sleeping in his crib for naps. He/we/daycare had gotten into the habit of letting him nap in the bouncy seat or swing and we are all trying to get him to nap in his crib more.

I wouldn't say he has mastered all the stage 2 baby foods but he has tried them all. He has also tried real banana and mashed potatoes. Daycare has started feeding him twice a day. Some nights go better than others depending on how tired he is. Ralph is more than willing to put almost anything in his mouth but this evening I tried to give him a little piece of bread and he looked at me like I had two heads. He likes trying to drink out of a small cup, plays around with a sippy cup - easily gets it into his mouth but hasn't quite figured out how to drink out of it, and likes to "drink" from cups with straws - once again, he doesn't quite have that sucking action down so he gums the straw for a bit.

Ralph's teeth are still keeping themselves hidden. It looks like there's some progress but nothing is popping through yet.

Squirming and More

The other day I thought Ralph was a long ways from crawling until I had a chance to watch him yesterday. He is not crawling in the traditional sense yet and he doesn't quite do a combat crawl but he can squirm around to reach whatever it is he has his sights on.

After months of waiting, teething has progressed a little more. As much as he was drooling months ago, people kept suggesting he was teething but no teeth came. It doesn't seem like he is excessively drooling but there have been changes in his gumline, his cheeks have a rosy glow to them, he has developed a slight drool rash under his lips, he is pushing his lips more with his tongue making all kinds of funny faces, and he has changed his sleeping to include putting a thumb or fingers in his mouth and "talking" in his sleep as he battles through the discomfort. It's only a matter of time . . . .

Ralph's coughing spells continue which could be contributed in part to excessive saliva. He has also developed a exaggerated fake cough and blinks his eyes . . .and then smiles like its funny. If Ralph is cranky and a little fussy we can make this coughing sound a few times and he changes his mood because he thinks its funny.

Ralph and Michael have started playing "catch." When Ralph is playing in the exosaucer we usually put extra toys on the tray. He'll play with them until they "accidentally" fall over the side . . .and then Ralph tries to peek over the side to look for whatever landed on the floor. Yesterday Michael picked up one of the balls and threw it back on the tray and Ralph in turn "threw" it back to Mike. . . .well, he threw it and it landed on the floor but he did throw it in the general direction. I think Ralph kept enough interest long enough for at least 10 tosses.