Owen is 8 months old

I feel terribly guilty that I didn't post a 6 month or 7 month post of Owen, so I'll catch up in this one! What isn't this big guy doing? He surprises me all of the time! He is knocking his gross motor milestones out of the park, first of all. He started crawling at Christmas time at 7 1/2 months. He then quickly started pulling himself up to standing using furniture, and now he is walking using a push toy, and can stand on his own for several seconds. The other day he decided to CLIMB into Raegan's little chair, and climb onto a toy. This is where I can tell he is definitely going to be into more things than R. I'm predicting walking by 9 1/2 months but we shall see!

I had planned to start him on solid foods at 6 months, which is now best practice. I ended up starting him two weeks earlier than that because he is just such a big boy and it was getting hard to keep up with the milk demand. The first time he ate baby food was the most hilarious thing, like he had been starving his whole like! He grabbed the spoon and shoved it into his mouth. He was so excited with every bite that he was shaking. And, there started my big eater! R never really ate baby food, so this has been a new experience for me. He eats A LOT of baby food, and teething crackers, and drinks some water. He is also still eating a ton of milk, but at least the food spaces it out for me. He loves to sit in his high chair and eat food while the rest of us are eating.

He has been saying, "mama" for quite that time. He has now added, "Dada" and "uh oh," He makes lots of funny sounds that seems like he is trying to imitate sissy and her many sounds! He responds consistently to his name, smiles when I recite his favorite book, and loves anything he can push. No one can get him to smile like sissy, though! She is the best at entertaining him, too. Which is a huge help to us! She has had a bit of a transition with sharing toys, and sharing mommy, but she is doing okay. Most of the time she loves playing with her brother! She likes to introduce him to new people, "This is my Owen." :)

Sleep has taken a turn for the worse, and it happened as soon as he started crawling. I read that this is common, but that is no consolation. It's like he decided it was way more fun to crawl than to sleep. It was really rough the first few weeks of crawling, but it has gotten a little better now. He is mostly transitioned into his crib, but still spends some time in mommy and daddy's bed depending on how tired I am. He still needs rocked or nursed back to sleep, and right now Daddy is the number one rocker. I have a terrible time getting him to sleep. On days when I'm  home, I sometimes just let him fall asleep in the car when we're driving somewhere instead of trying to get him down for a nap in his bed. Luckily, sissy has been sleeping like a champ!

Owen probably has about 30 times as many toys as Raegan did at his age, simply because of R's accumulation of toys over almost 4 years. We have blocked off the living room with a baby fence and the leather ottoman. It is essentially just a baby zone where Owen can cruise around and we know he is safe. Toys are strewn all over the floor. His favorites are the v-tech train, soft stacking blocks, his tractor push toy, and anything he can roll! He loves to have any books read to him, and sits so still while we read to him. We sometimes let Owen in on R's story time right before bed, and he enjoys that! Some nights I just need to get him to bed asap though. He also just loves to watch anything sissy is doing. If we put him in his walker, he can watch her build a castle or a train track, without destroying it and making her mad.

He's such a fun little guy!
Happy 8 months bubs!