Walker: 8 Months

Walker wants to walk so badly! He is on the move and is quite the wiggle worm. He is crawling up a storm, pulling up, balancing while standing and will walk holding your hands. Changing his diaper and getting him dressed is a workout. As soon as I get him on his back he flips over and starts crawling away. I do love seeing his cute little naked booty, but it is frustrating. I break a sweat just trying to get him dressed. He is wearing 12 and 18 month clothing and I think he is slimming down. Don't get me wrong, he still has his rolls and his "important" thighs, but he is getting stronger every day. He has the strongest grip! Jane sometimes can't even get things away from him and she is pulling with all her might. 

Walker is very alert and hard to distract. Usually you can take away a toy and replace it with another toy but he remembers about the first toy, saw where you put it and tries with all his might to get it back. This mostly happens with the remote and cell phone.

He prefers to feed himself these days. He will eat the pureed food but he would rather pick up the softened food and feed it to himself. He does a pretty good job getting the food in his mouth, but I now remember how much I dislike this stage since it makes such a mess. I need to take more eating pictures, especially when he uses the sweet potatoes or peas as a hair mousse.

He is either gawking or smiling. He has the sweetest smile and giggle and I feel like he is always smiling. He is sleeping well too. YEAH!! He naps for 1-1.5 hours two times a day (9-10:30 and 1-2:30). He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner (at 5-5:30), has a bath then goes down around 7-7:30 and will sleep until 6:30am. He usually sleeps 11 hours at night. And he can put himself to sleep. I usually rock him to sleep but he can put himself back to sleep on his own. This is very different from our sleeping battles with Jane. 

I am weaning Walker and we have started formula bottles. I had really hoped to breastfeed for a year,  but after a month and a half of painful complications and many tears, I think it is best to switch to formula. He is adjusting to the formula well. I think it gives him gas even though it is the gentle version for fussiness and gas.