Eight Months and One Week Old

Henry turned eight months old last week and he's been really busy.

He now crawls on his hands and knees (as opposed to doing the army crawl) and he's incredibly fast at it, too. He pulls himself up to standing and can usually get himself back down again. He tries to climb up on things -- he surprised me the other day by climbing on top of a box of old diapers I had in his room. (I am afraid. I am very afraid.)

His favorite things are items he is not supposed to have -- electrical cords, the magazine I'm trying to read, the clock radio, etc.

He drops things from his highchair very deliberately, one right after another. And he loves books (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I Kissed the Baby! and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? are favorites), turning the (board book) pages almost faster than I can read them.

He babbles constantly (and loudly!) now and makes clucking or smacking noises just to try them out. For some reason he also bleats like a little lamb, which is funny when he does it throughout an entire shopping trip. He's also making silly faces -- squishing up his eyes, pursing his lips, etc.

He wants Mama all the time and puts his head down on my shoulder or leans against my chest for comfort. When I make my morning smoothie I hold him and try to talk him through the loud noise of the blender, and he buries his face in my neck, then cautiously turns his head around to look at it, and then whips his head around to hide his face again.

He doesn't give me much time to myself. If I try to go around the corner to check e-mail while he's playing nicely by himself he cries and follows me. But this time is going so fast -- I try to keep in mind that this portion of his childhood will be over before I know it.