Benton Update: 8 Months

Ben has continued to be the happiest, most content little guy. :) He is inching his way towards being a one year old, and we can hardly believe it. Happy 8 Months sweet boy!

Some facts from Benton's eighth month of life:

-Wearing 6-12 month shirts and sleepers and 12-18 month pants.

-Mainly wearing cloth diapers with no snaps. In disposables, he is wearing a size 4 diaper.

-Eating 4 times per day. Each of his bottles/sippy cups has 6 ounces of formula, and he is eating solids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

-Sleeping great! He has changed up his sleeping times a little bit. He likes to be in bed BY 7pm. He starts really letting us know if we aren't moving that way. He is also waking up at 6:30am instead of 7am, but this actually works out better for us anyway. He is taking 2 really good naps in the morning and afternoon (about 2 hours each).

-Eat/play/sleep...we all love you.

Random things we don't want to forget:

-He is a clapping machine. Everything remotely interesting gets a clap. :)

-His favorite word is "dada," and he will say it over and over all day long. It is only fitting that his new favorite person is also daddy. :)

-Ben is really starting to let us know what he wants. He reaches for us when he wants to be picked up, grabs our legs when he wants us to play with him, he reaches for his crib when he is ready to sleep, he has a very specific meltdown when he ready to eat, etc.

-Big milestone: he holds his own bottle/sippy cup all by himself. We lay him on the floor with his bottle/sippy cup and he does the rest! We have almost completely switched from bottle to sippy.

-He still thinks his toes are the tastiest thing ever.

-He has started dancing (ie, bouncing) when he hears familiar songs, such as the songs that some of his books play and The Zac Brown Band. He has good taste!

-When he is sitting or laying on the floor, we can put our fingers in front of him and he will almost always grab them and pull up to stand.

-He is a really good eater! I have made all of his baby food, and he likes pretty much everything but peas (I can't blame him). Right now, he eats pureed peas, green beans, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, avocado, pears, apples, blueberries, mangos, plums, and peaches. He also likes oatmeal and bananas. He is eating quite a bit of table food such as yogurt, cheese, rotini pasta, cheerios, pancakes, scrambled eggs, puffs, yogurt melts, graham crackers, toast, quesadillas, or anything else that we are eating that we think he could eat.
-He empties each toy out of his toy basket, inspects it, then throws it down...he does this unti his toy basket is empty.

-We bought a walker for Ben and he LOVES it. He does a weird bounce step thing, and he can only go backward. :)

-He imitates many sounds we make...fake coughing (but please don't try to get him to do this!...ha), clicking his tongue, consonants, laughing, etc. He's a little noisemaker!

Little love, you are such a blessing to us and we are so grateful for you!!!!