leaps and bounds

This morning Ezra turned 8 months old. He also cruised around the whole coffee table, and transferred from the table to the sofa and back, and cruised on other random things. Once he got stuck with one hand on the table and the other on the sofa, and started whimpering (I rescued him). Also, I laid him down on his back on the floor and took his diaper off for a change, turned to get a new diaper, and when I looked up he was sitting there playing with his big pot. He has gone from crawling to sitting before, but this was so fast! He is really learning to get his body to do what he wants it to!

8 Months Old!

Tomorrow, that is :)

Ezra is getting so big! He is a busy little guy. For a while we thought he was about to crawl, but now we think he might have decided to skip that stage. He pulls up to standing and cruises on the furniture; in fact, he gets mad if I don't let him cruise almost all day long, but as long as he's standing he's happy as a clam. His favorite music is the Raffi CD Baby Beluga. He loves books; his favorite used to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I think he's turned his affection to Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb. He likes to eat home-made applesauce, avocado (fixed up with spices and everything), banana...really, so far the only thing he hasn't liked has been carrots. He seems to especially like well-spiced food, and I can't say I blame him :) He still likes to chew on his Soothie binkies, and he plays with spoons, and a broken cell phone, and a big pot that he puts things in and takes things out of. He loves throwing his ball. He is totally infatuated with his rubber ducky, although for some reason he likes to scream at it at the top of his lungs (while smiling). Today he started using a wooden spoon to bang on the table and make noise. He knows how to use a spoon, more or less, and tries to "help" me when he's eating applesauce or something else from a spoon. He still doesn't babble or make many consonant sounds ("th" being a notable exception), but he is very vocally expressive, using different tones, like questioning, happy, mad, etc.

Oh, and he has two teeth! I've yet to get a good picture of them, though. They are still somewhat close to the gum, but they are sharp!

As always, Ezra loves the outdoors. We can't just open the door to check the temperature, and then close it, because he will get very upset that we didn't take him out. I am so happy that the weather is warming up, so we spend lots of time outside!

Here is a link to a video of Ezra, taken today (sorry it's sideways). I stopped filming because there were things near his feet I didn't want him to trip on, but if I'd kept filming you would have seen him cruise along the table and back a few times:
http://s55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/mama_tigress/?action=view&current=IMGP2324.flv

And here is a photo of Ezra trying to get in on some tooth-brushing action, and another of him grinning for the camera today:

learning to crawl, and pulling up

Ezra has been busy! I have a bunch of great photos of him learning to crawl, so I'll just post a few. And he's also pulling up to standing whenever he gets a chance. He won't let us sit him down anywhere (this includes his booster seat and car seat) without a struggle, because he wants to be standing! He is starting to learn to go from a crawling position to a sitting position. And he is also finally truly getting teeth! The bottom right middle one should be the first in, and I can also see the other middle one and the next one over on the right. I hope it doesn't take too long for them to break through; we've already had 3 sleepless nights! I think the teeth wake him up, and then he decides that since he's awake he'd like to practice crawling :p Thankfully he's been in a relatively good mood during the day, although he does randomly cry out like he's hurting, poor dude.

Okay, without further ado, the pictures. The first two are trying to crawl, with the subtitle: "If you agree not to put a new diaper on me, I'll act really cute. Deal?" (please ignore the messy apartment...there are toys all over the floor and clean diapers on the table)































Next we have two of him pulling up in his crib:




































And finally, a picture of Ezra in his new car seat. He was sleepy. The chest harness thing is too high because he pulled it up to suck on it; I have to figure out how to get him to stop doing that! In any case he is MUCH more comfortable in the new seat, making car rides more pleasurable for all.