7 months of growth

Kaleb turns 8 months at the end of January. I'm sitting here wondering where the time had gone already...

My last Kaleb related post was back when he was 3 months old, and a lot has changed since then. He soon learned to roll over and hold things in his hands. Rolling over meant that he was no longer going to always stay where you put him, and it was exciting to see him being able to pick something up to interact with it.

At 6 months we started weaning him - waiting till then meant we didn't have to mess around with mushing things up quite so much and could give him solid food straight away. We did have him practicing dinner time beforehand by letting him play with a plastic spoon while we were eating, but he seems happier to just grab food with him hands directly. We've attempted to spoon feed him a few times, but he mostly prefers feeding himself.

We found out early on that he seems to like bread sticks. I think he was starting to teethe and having something he could crunch a little bit with his gums might have helped him. They're also a good shape for him to be able to hold onto. We've tried out a range of different things for him, even cooking a couple of meals that we know he can eat so he can be eating the same as us, usually changing one or two minor bits to make it more Kaleb friendly.

Speaking of teething, I discovered on Xmas eve that two little bottom teeth had poked out (he bit me...), which has changed his eating minorly; if we give him a grape he can now split it open before spitting it out, and he crunches up some food a little faster now.

Most recently he has been able to sit up on his own, which I see as a pretty big step. I found this out while he was having a bath and though it took a couple of wobbly days he can now usually sit up unaided and not always topple over if he reaches to grab something nearby.

Sitting on his own has shown that he is starting to practice to shuffle around on his bum, giving him more ways to get around. This way is a lot slower than his previous method of rolling over to cover a distance, and rotating on the spot to aim himself, but I think he likes sitting up for the time being.

He's not been crawling properly yet, mainly just rolling around, but I have seen him move along on his stomach like a little army commando crawl, so he might just sick with those. I guess only time will tell...

We have been playing peekaboo by hiding his face with a thin cloth - he finds it hilarious when it gets pulled away. So much so that he taught himself to grab it and pull it down himself.

It's crazy to think that he'll be a year old in a couple of months, I can't wait to find out what he will be able to do then!