Cookie thief.

So there I was, minding my own business, trying to eat the remaining half of my freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie, when Jim storms up, snatches it out of my hand, and eats the whole damned thing.

Dammit, baby, I wanted that cookie.


No remorse.

I suck at this. But hey, Jim is 8 months old!

I do have his monthly pictures, I swear. Unfortunately they're on my camera, which is somewhere behind Jim's bookshelf. You'll see them eventually. Fortunately, there are plenty more pictures of Jim to post (of course), so this post will not be unillustrated!


Flying is confusing.
So, Jim turned eight months a week ago, and he is big and mighty. He's a pretty personable little bugger this month. He's not super talkative - much more of a physical guy, really. But he does do some interactive stuff. He holds up his arms to be held, and if you're not fast enough with the holding, he tries to climb up your leg. Well, my leg, anyway. If I try to do something like, say, wash the dishes (or update my blog), he will stand clinging to my skirt and fussing until I attend to his loneliness. He also tries to imitate movements somewhat. If I wave my arm at him, he'll wave his back (up and down - hasn't quite figured out side-to-side).

Physically, he's a monster. Still teeny, of course, but he's now crawling on all fours like a stereotypical baby. If we're outside, he switches to bear crawling (hands and feet instead of hands and knees) because he hates the grass on his knees. He got his first grass-stain on his jeans in the park a few days ago - a proud, proud day. He can stand on his own, a little. He pulls up on everything (the couch, the fireplace, my hair) and then lets go to stand independently. Typically he looks astounded at his own prowess for about four seconds and then plops down on his butt.


Still one of his favorite foods.
He eats a ton. He gets lunch and dinner every day, and breakfast sometimes. He accidentally had a peanut butter cookie over Christmas and it did him no harm, so we've continued giving it to him. His favorite food of the week is a whole-wheat bagel with a little peanut butter on it. He likes his veggies, too, but with his tragic lack of teeth, they're a little tough to eat when raw. Oh, speaking of teeth - his second one just came in! It cut through yesterday right next to the other one.

I'll try to locate my camera and upload the recent pictures for your amusement. Until then, be amazed at Jim's ferocity.


Fear not, it's just barbecue sauce.

Edited to add OFFICIAL monthly pictures! I tried to be all cute and take the pictures in the comfort of his crib, but...


Either I stood close to the crib and he got all up in my face...

...or I stood far away and it was depressingly prison-y.
So here's what you get:

Fine. I'll pose with the damn bear.

Seven months update.

I figured I should probably post Jim's seven-month update since he'll be eight months tomorrow. I am totally on top of things. I'm going to keep this pretty short, since he's currently trying to do himself in on the brick fireplace, and I'd sooner not get TOO involved in anything lest I have to step in.



So, as far as mental/cognitive/emotional/social developments go, the main thing was probably that he learned how to communicate a little bit. He figured out how to hold his arms out to be held, and if you hold your arms out to him, he'll generally flop himself on over to you to grab your hands. He's also developing quite the little personality. At home, he's pretty jolly. He likes to laugh and smile, and is quite brave at exploring (generally while keeping his own little narration going - ahh DA DA DA squeeeeEEEE!). In new places, he's VERY serious. He does not smile at strangers, ever. He's still very brave with exploring, but he saves the jocularity for when he's home with me and Noah.


Also, he was apparently very squirmy, because most of the pictures looked like this.

In terms of physical development, seven months was quite a good month. He got his first tooth, and perfected his ridiculous walloping crawl. Just before he turned seven months (as in literally the day before) he figured out how to sit up on his own. Since he can pull up to standing from sitting, this means he can pretty much go wherever he wants now. He can move to anywhere he wants to be, sit up, find something to stand with, and then plop down to crawl off somewhere else.

So that is Jim at seven months. I'll edit this in a minute to put some pictures in (DONE, finally, two months later). Right now I need to save him from the wires behind the TV.

Things that were in Jim's mouth today: A List

23 leaves
6 pine needles
2 clover flowers (white, not pink)
piece of bark
approx. 9 tablespoons dirt (damp, but not sopping)
3 sticks (varying sizes)
1/2 fistful grass (dead)

Can anyone tell me at what age people stop cramming random things in their mouths?

For the record, I did manage to stop him from swallowing most of these things, but I do believe he got at least a teaspoon of dirt and a few strands of grass down his little gullet.

Sigh.

Yeah, I know, I've been shamefully lax here since Christmas. It's hard to get back into the habit of posting, but I'll work on it. To that end, expect a lot of short random inconsequential posts for a while, because I think the best way to get back into the habit of posting here is just to post whenever something pops into my head.

To that end (randomness, that is), here is a picture of Jim and me enjoying the balmy weather in Georgia the day after we got home from frigid Pennsylvania.

In which I whinge and our hero encounters several of his relations.

Again, all apologies, I know some of you people are very eager to see pictures from our visit. It has honestly been a LOT harder than I expected to get back to our normal routine down here in Georgia. The hardest bit has been Noah's sleep schedule, really. He goes back to work in a couple days, so he needs to be back on his third-shift sleep pattern for that, and it has been a complete pain in the ass getting back to that. It took exactly one day when his leave started for him to get used to sleeping at night like a normal person. Going back to sleeping days, however, has been a bit of a trial. We've been trying for about four days now, and the poor guy is currently a zombie with no sleep rhythm. Damned human biological tendency toward diurnal habits.

Our other trial, significantly less bothersome but still a bit tricky, has been adjusting to having a new member of the household. We brought back an extremely adorable kitty from Pennsylvania, and Bruce (our existing cat, for those of you just joining us) has not really been delighted with the idea of sharing his abode with a new cat. Some progress has been made: he no longer spends his entire day sitting outside her room screaming (like a wildcat, it was scary). He just pauses there once or twice a day to sniff and meow hopefully. Tomorrow I may try putting her in the computer room while he goes in her room to get a good smell, and if neither of them freak out about that, I'll try introducing them face-to-face (with one in a carrier) on Saturday. So, that whole situation is coming along, just a little more slowly than I expected.

Anyway! Rambling complete, on to the pictures (after the break, in the interests of faster page loading). Some of them anyway. I apologize for the quality of some of them - winter in Pennsylvania does not lend itself to great indoor lighting, so a lot of these are blurry or dim.

Well, this is embarrassing.

As you may or may not have noticed, I've been back from our Magical Christmas Mystery Tour for four whole days now and haven't posted a damn thing. Fear not, I'll get around to it, but I'm still processing the absurd amount of pictures we took. Until then, let me tide you over with this cheesy yet adorable picture of Jim admiring our Christmas tree:


Kindly ignore the boobage.