Henry boy is 8 months old
Here's an it's-10:30-pm-and-I'm-incredibly-tired-update:
He started army crawling at 6 months, pulled up to stand about a month later, and has progressed to a hands and knees crawl that is fast. He and the dogs often move around the house as a pack. Of course Lady is moving toward him and Sawyer is moving away from him (in terror), but two of the three are having a grand old time. One night, we heard Henry wake up and whimper, so Drew went into the nursery, only to find Lady sitting right next to Henry's crib, doing everything her doggie self could to help him.
And speaking of dogs, I have trained Henry to kiss me just like our old pall Pavlov and that incredibly disgusting word: salivation. Ok, ignore the gross word and focus on the kissing. It's not a pucker kiss yet, but he places his open mouth against my cheek (and sometimes other people's) and clearly knows that it's a gesture that pleases people. The other day, when I hugged him goodbye in the morning, he planted one sweet Henry kiss on my cheek and the timing swept my little heart away. I thought about it all day at work.
One tough thing about this stage is that Henry no longer drifts off gently to sleep; in fact, he fights sleep. He gets tired, I guess overtired, and arches his back in a ferocious backbend that would make any 9-year-old gymnast proud as he wails like a banshee. We have to be careful about bathing him too late, because once he was overtired in the tub, and started doing his archy flailing. Trying to hold on to a soaped-up little boy, thrashing with all his might is like trying to hold on to a slippery fish with vaselined hands. Anyway, it scared me because he bonked his head on the tub in the process, and I've decided bath time has to come much earlier. We haven't had another incident like that one since- phew.
But accompanying the difficult tired tantrums is one fun little boy. We've started to notice that his grin is a bit mischevous (which everyone, including Andrew, asserts that it comes from me- I have no counterargument). He roars with laughter when Daddy lifts him high in the air and he barks at the dogs.
And in other news, he's getting hair! It seemed to happen overnight. And he has a line of curls that goes down the center of his head, and some curls forming at his neck.
Still no teeth. After one week (in month five or so) of showing unmistakable teething signs... nothing. His mouth wasn't bothering him anymore and the drooling stopped. He'll be walking before he gets his first tooth.
Ok, I'm tired. Onto the pics. Check out the failed attempts to get his picture because he kept crawling off the mat to eat the dirt. And hey- I found a use for one of the five 3' balloons I have leftover from the craft.
But I got one I was happy with:
Love you, cheeky little baby.
