Quotable #6

"What you're doing, Mommy?"
-I'm changing your diaper.
"Why you're using a wipe?"
-I have to clean your bottom.
"Why you have to clean my bottom?"
-Because you pooped in your diaper.
"Why I pooped in my diaper?"
-Because you didn't go on the potty.
"But why I pooped?"
-Because God made your body to get rid of waste that way.
"What waste is?"
-Umm...when you eat food, some of it goes out of your body as waste.
"But why did I eat food?"
-Because you were hungry.
"But why I was hungry?"
-Because that's the way God made your body.
"But why that's the way God made my body?"
-You'd have to ask God that one.
"BUT WHYYYYYY GOD?!?!? BUT WHYYYYYYYY??!?!"
-What did he say?
"He said Yes."

Peter, why did you do that?

"Because why I did."

He asks some tricky questions, but the impossible ones come out of the blue and usually sound like this:

"What I was talking about?"

"What I did yesterday?"

"What I almost did?" 

"Who was that girl?"
What girl?
"The GIRL I was talking about"
I don't know which girl you were talking about. Where did you see her?
"THE GIRLLLLLL!!!"
Peter, I don't know who the girl is. What does she look like?
"What?"
What does the girl look like?
"What girl?"

A few of my current favorites:
Baby octo-pellus (A capella Babies CD)
Mounteen, Raiseen, Muffeen
Milk chocolate
Orange Juice Water (diluted OJ)
Miss Mommy (Kory told him he could just call me Mommy and I quickly reprimanded him) :)

"When Lukers wakes up he will wake up for 100 days?"
Oh goodness, I hope not. That sounds awful.
"Aw Mommy. Don't be sad about it. I wove you. Can I kiss you?"

"How did you not catch me?"
We were at a swimming pool with a slide for the little kids. An adult has to catch them when they enter the water. A little girl came down the slide with no one to catch her, so I pulled her out of the water and got her to the side of the pool. I looked up at the slide to tell Peter to go and he was nowhere to be found. Apparently, he went down the slide just a few seconds earlier and I didn't catch him because I was helping that girl. He asked me later why I didn't catch him and I explained. He asked me again a few days later and Daddy encouraged it because he thought it was funny to joke about me letting Peter sink. This slide event happened at least 6 weeks ago now and Peter still asks me almost daily why I didn't catch him. My response is now, "I'm not going to talk about it right now."

Our friend, Keyton, came over and did some work for us at our house a while back. That night, Peter's bedtime prayer sounded like this:

"Dear God,
Thank you for Keyton. Thank you for Keyton's dog. Thank you for our dog. Thank you for our neighbor's dog. Thank you for Keyton's neighbor's dog. His neighbor has a dog? Thank you.
Amen."

Luke: 8 months

Weight: 17 lbs. 3 oz.

Height: 27.5 in.

The best news this month is that Luke is consistently sleeping through the night now! I decided to do sleep training on a whim in the middle of the night a couple weeks ago. The first night he cried for almost 3 hours with me going in every 10 minutes or so to help him calm down and get to sleep. The second night was about 1.5 hours and the 3rd night was about 45 minutes. He's slept 10-12 hours straight many of the nights since. He has woken up a few times in the night this week, but I don't feed him and can usually help him get back to sleep in about 10-15 minutes.

His naps improved too when I night weaned him. Our routine is for me to turn the sound machine on, lay him down on his tummy in his crib with his pacifier in his mouth, pat his back a little and then leave him to fall asleep on his own. About half the time I have to go back in and do it another time, but if I notice right when he gets sleepy, I can put him down and he'll go right to sleep.

His right top front tooth came in about 2 weeks ago. Once I knew he wasn't in pain from that, I decided we could do sleep training. His other top front tooth doesn't appear to be very close to coming in so he's going to look pretty snaggle-toothed for a while.

The biggest developmental milestone for this month is that he is pulling up on everything! He loves to walk along the couch or other furniture and prefers to be standing at all times. He especially loves to crawl up to you and pull up on your legs. It's bothersome when I'm trying to cook or walk around and have to pry him off my legs before I can take a step, but Kory assures me it's worse when you have hairy legs for him to grab onto.

Now that he is sleeping better at night, he is eating a LOT in the daytime. He's eating less purees and more solids, because he really likes to feed himself. He doesn't know how to chew very well yet, so Cheerios and veggie straws are the main things he feeds himself. We're still doing yogurt and/or prunes every day to help his tummy issues. The one day we didn't feed him either of those led to a really bad night of screaming again, so we'll continue with that routine for now.

Luke sort of drank from a bottle this month. He still doesn't love it, but he did figure out he could suck on it and get milk out. He mostly chewed on it, though, and it took forever to get him to finish the bottle.

At 8 months, Luke:

• has 3 teeth
• wears size 2 diapers
• fits in 6-9 month clothing

He looks so much like my little brother, Andy, when he was a baby. This outfit was worn by my brothers in the 1980s and the resemblance is so strong in these pictures!

Luke is SUCH a happy baby! He will play in his or Peter's room by himself for 20-30 minutes at a time, which is really helpful for me in getting stuff done around the house. He loves to crawl all over you if you'll lay down on the floor. He prefers to be standing or upright at all times, if possible. He only uses his pacifier when he's tired or asleep. If you'll make eye contact, he's got a big smile for you and has started babbling, mostly saying "da".  

I LOVE this stage of babyhood. He comes crawling to me SO fast when he sees me. He sleeps all night and naps well. He loves to sit on my hip and be carried around but can also be set down and play independently for a bit. I feel certain he'll be walking before long, so I'm just soaking up this sweet stage before I have to chase him all over.

Luke: Seven Months

Weight: 15 lbs. 4 oz.

Height: 27 in.

His right, top front tooth is SO close to breaking through...I've thought that for over a month now, but it's really close now. He's got 2 bottom teeth right now and I can attest to their sharpness!

Peter has such a hard time not being part of these photo shoots. He also has a hard time keeping his hands off Luke for any period of time. The number one thing he throws a fit about is wanting to hold Luke and being told "Not right now". 

Luke is wearing size 2 diapers and 6 month clothing. He was supposed to have a weight check with the Dr. this month because he was dropping in weight percentiles, but he's eating well and growing and I wasn't concerned so we skipped that appointment.

He's crawling really fast, all over the place. As you can see from the picture above, I almost always have to hold him down to get a picture of him before he crawls away. The boy is a mover and does not like to be sitting still. He also does not like to be rocked and won't do much cuddling, unless it's the middle of the night.

Below is his "I'm being tickled" face. I just love it! He's got such a great belly laugh when we tickle him. It's one of my favorite things about this age. 

He loves when Peter will carry him around the house. Peter's pretty good with him and only occasionally drops him. haha Luke will giggle and smile the whole time and really loves it if Peter jumps up and down a few times while holding him. (Other people probably can't believe we let him do it, but we figure if they're both enjoying it and no one is crying, it's fine.)

Luke's been sleeping about the same as always: waking 2-3 times every night, but going back to sleep quickly when I nurse him. He goes to bed around 8:00-8:30 and is up for the day around 8:30-9:00 a.m. I'd love to do a little sleep training with him, but he's currently teething and I know he's in pain from that many nights, so I will keep waiting until these teeth break through before working on his sleep patterns.

Luke is a big fan of solid foods and will eat anything I've offered to him so far. The biggest issue we've faced this month is that he's had a lot of constipation and tummy troubles because of solids. He'd spend hours screaming at night and arching his back in pain and I couldn't find anything to help him. It was awful! Once I realized it was constipation, we started feeding him a combination of prunes and pears and yogurt every single day and he's done great ever since. I'm hopeful we won't have to do this for too much longer, but I'm so thankful it's relieved his pain and given us both more sleep. I loved making and feeding Peter baby food, but I'm finding that it's not my favorite this time around. I think it's largely because it just takes too much of my time and I'm already trying to feed Peter and myself, so then feeding Luke and cleaning him up afterwards just makes meal times drag out forever. I'm looking forward to the time when Luke can start feeding himself a bit more.

I knew wrestling would be a given with boys, but I didn't know it would start so early! This is how they spend a good portion of their waking hours and how our photo shoot ended on this day.