A happy 8 months

It's really hard to believe how quickly time goes by. And I'm sure I've uttered those words before, so I'm sorry if I repeat myself. But it's so true! I can still remember May 27 like it was yesterday. Truly. And now Cole is 8 months old today. Exactly 35 weeks ago on this day (a Thursday) I gave birth to him.

At 245 days old, or 8 months, he's "talking"--- a lot.
His words: Mama, meme, DaDa, Da, Hada, his version of Cat. I'll have to record it sometime. It sounds like he's screeching, but really there's the K sound then the AT sound. Everything is "Da" or "HaDa." In addition now to waking up in the middle of the night crawling or standing, he's also talking. He ends up calling my boob "Da" or "Ha Da" as he's leaning in to nurse. It's pretty funny.

He's also getting less afraid of not seeing me in the same room as him and more interested in exploring. When he wants to get somewhere fast, he crawls. He now crawls away from me and after the cats. Speaking of the cats ... they are now both afraid of him and have mastered the art of darting. Their pleasure strolls around the house are no more with Crawling Cole around.

About a month after Cole was born Keith realized I was taking all of my pictures of Cole with my iPhone, so he bought the Canon Rebel XS. He also taught me how to use Lightroom, a program he uses for his photography. I became more adept at downloading photos and making collections, etc, etc. So now, because we take most of our pictures with the Rebel (minus the week or so I went on strike because I didn't like getting scolded for not formatting the memory card), there are a ton of pictures in Lightroom. Literally. And even though it may seem like it, I don't post that many pictures - compared to the amount of pictures we have stored in our computer. So with that being said, I decided to do the rest of this post in pictures. A photo essay of Cole's daily life.  I wish I could show you what day care looks like, but I doubt they have time to snap photos of Cole's day for me (but- wouldn't it be nice if they did?)

Cole is very oral. He likes to put EVERYTHING into his mouth. He barely looks at an object before it's headed to his mouth. This wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't also drop EVERYTHING he puts into his mouth, requiring us, of course, to pick it up and wash it off. Sometimes, though, I follow the five-second rule. Don't tell anyone though.

This is Cole's perch. It's an ottoman we purchased from Target after I was off strict bed rest. It has really come in handy, especially after we retired the coffee table with a thousand sharp corners. He stands at this ottoman every day and we regularly pile blocks on it.

If babies could actually pose, then this caption would read: Cole posing in front of his beloved ottoman.  However, I think Keith just got really lucky. Either that or he's a damn good photographer. Probably the latter.

Yes, folks the television is tethered to the hutch. Of course, this is the first object I witnessed him attempting to climb. Keith took this photo and the one below.

This is Cole's path. He goes from the ottoman (far right hand corner) to the activity cube then to the television, then to the table next to the television and then to the exer-saucer. He moves using a combination of skills: crawling and reaching -as pictured here. Also, he gets a lot of help from us. I sometimes "walk" him from one object to the next.

When he's not knocking blocks off the ottoman, Cole's other obsession is pulling Keith's PDN magazines off the bookshelf. Interesting fact: this bookshelf (located in our dining room) was in Keith's room when he was a baby. It was once filled with diapers and clothes and Keith's mom had little curtains over each shelf. 

This was a small victory for Cole. When he first started to pull himself up to a stand he thought big and tried immediately to pull himself up onto the couch. That's what led us to nickname him Crash, because he bruised himself a few times trying to do it. Here he is screaming his version of "Cat" at Clem. Keith also took this one and the one below.

Cole looking cute at his second favorite perch: the end table by the small sofa. I've now piled little board books on there so he can pull them off.

Cole clutching a carrot on one of our snow days. I let him teethe on it and taste it, and he had lots of fun doing it.

Cole sucking his avocado covered fingers. The battle over the spoon continues and sometimes I just give up and spoon the food out onto his tray and let him eat it with his fingers.  It's really messy this way, but much more avocado went into his mouth this way than it would have if I had continued to try to feed him myself.

The parting shot. Total cuteness.

Guess who took this one? Yep - not me!