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: