Letters: 8 Months Old

Ok, Luke -
It's 5:30 in the morning, and you're babbling away across the hall, ready for your day to begin at an un-godly hour. Daddy got up early for an early retreat, and you decided to get up, too! As much as I'd like to run in and begin snuggle time with you, I'm trying to make it to 6am. I mean, it's really not healthy to begin the day earlier than 6am. Really! So, what better way to use this time than to spend it writing about all the wonderful things that are making you, you recently!

It's been a really good month for you - you seem to be growing like crazy. (We go to the doc next month to find out exactly how much you've grown.) Every day you amaze us with your ability to eat food. Along with a healthy dose of your yummy baby foods (you particularly love sweet potatoes and well, anything actually), you're packing away any finger foods you can get your hands on -- a little early by many accounts, but you want nothing more than to just shove something in your mouth: little carpet fuzzies, un-used diapers... when we can manage to get food in front of you, it goes directly into your mouth. Yum! You're a mealtime pro.

You're also moving like crazy. Not yet crawling, although you're definitely threatening it. You get up on your hands and knees, and do the 'ol rock back and forth like you're getting ready to race. But the forward momentum at this point only leads to flying forward onto your belly. You don't seem to mind! You're also rolling around to get literally across the room. As your Uncle Adam put it this past weekend at the cabin, "he's got some sweet rolling drills." Yep! And changing your diaper is often the most difficult task of the day, along with trying to get your bottle ready while we're holding you. As Maren calls you, you're a "squirmy worm!" Holy squirmy worm! It's really like holding onto a fish just out of water... or so your dad says.

And those teeth! Where are those darn teeth?! We have been using the teeth excuse for months... and to no avail. Last week you were chomping on my hand for a few minutes and I swore that I felt something sharp finally emerging... You're just an oral kind of person, I guess! Last night you were so happy to see me when I got home from work that you sucked on my chin for about 2 minutes. This morning I was excited to find a hickey there. (That will be great for my educators' conference on Thursday.) :)

The sleeping story has continued to be as inconsistent as ever. I mean, we were warned that our expectations for a baby sleeping were un-realistic, thanks to your snooze-queen sister... and your Gramma Connie keeps mentioning that her beloved second-born didn't sleep through the night until he was one years old. One?!, we thought - that's ridiculous. And exhausting! But here we are; one years old doesn't sound half bad at this point. Let's be clear: it's not that you haven't slept through the night... you do, quite often, and have since you were 2 months old. But it doesn't last long. It comes in two week spurts; followed by two weeks of a different, less appealing spurt of getting up at 4, 5, am... You seem to be far too interested in life to spend it sleeping right now. But maybe in two weeks the next phase will kick in and you'll spend more time snoozing away... at least for those two weeks, right?

And now, you're up: it's 6:11am and you've been fed and changed and I was hoping beyond hope that you'd go back to bed. But why?, I'm sure you're wondering, when you can hang with mommy and have some special mommy and me time?! Yes, I love this time, too - even when it's still so dark out or so cold cause the daytime heat hasn't kicked in or that there's still another hour and a half before your sister gets up and it would have been the perfect time to get something done... no, no, this is indeed the best time to spend with you - as it's often our only Lukey-only time. Maybe you know that, too?

We love you, bubs. Even if it's 6am and you've been up for an hour.

Mama and Daddy