Goodness, month 8 ran the gamut. So many developmental changes for this boy that alternately made him giddy with excitement and disastrously exhausted. Â
Most notably, by the end of April Zig-Zag (new nickname courtesy of the Rusts) was on the move! He started getting up onto his hands and knees during playtime and quickly figured out how to crawl…backwards. He’d perch for a moment with his butt in the air, rocking back and forth like a race car revving his engine at the starting line, and then take off toward whatever object he had in sight, ending up two feet farther away from it than where he started. He found this very frustrating. But as a spectator, it was maybe a tiny bit amusing?
This was peak frustration.
Get it, Buddy!
He started unleashing new levels of exuberance in the bathtub, getting out all that pent-up pre-crawling energy by splashing like a madman. He’d flail with abandon and then blink at me in his almost-empty tub with water droplets clinging to his eyelashes, like “what just happened?!”.
Four new teeth broke through last month and now he has top chompers to match those two bottom chicklets he’s had since January. I love this toothy grin! He spent a week constantly grinding his top and bottom teeth together as he made sense of his new mouth (that sound was nails on a chalkboard to me!), but he’s eased up and settled in.
There was a week in early April when Isaac slept a solid 12 hours two nights in a row. Such a thoughtful return-to-work gift from my boy! We were on the right sleep track. And then he fell back into waking up around 3am to eat, which was fine, but then it was midnight and 3am, which was less fine, and then it was sometimes 10pm and midnight and 2am and then up for the day 5:00 and THAT WAS NOT OK. He slept better as a newborn than he did as an eight month old. We’re getting back on track and I’m optimistically going to chalk that up to a short-lived sleep regression, but crap, that was rough.
On the flipside, we made progress on the nap front and he now goes down for his daytime dozes with hardly a peep.  For the record, I do put him in his crib. Most days.
Ah, and the post-nap pickup! My favorite.  Once awake, he pops up on his hands and knees (and recently started sitting up on his own) and jabbers until one of us scoops him up.
Too much, this kid!
*Yes, he was clearly verging on a jailbreak – his crib has since been lowered.
Other random tidbits…
He still loves walks and becomes wonderfully zen once strapped into his stroller.
Unless that walk is to pick up sister from school, in which case he quickly goes from zen to giddy.
His favorite toy is this xylophone – at first because he loved to chew on the mallet, but then because he realized it’s LOUD if he hits it hard enough.
He also loves a good Rubick’s Cube.
Lazy Saturday mornings, when I get to drop him in bed with Juliette once she wakes up, are THE BEST.
Lazy Saturday afternoons, when we get to nap together (a rare treat, but I can occasionally finagle it!) are a close second.
Obligatory chair pics!
The sweetest toes that wiggle and stretch as he settles into nursing.
Little Rascal hair.
And oh, BABY BOY…Â I miss the bejeezus out of you while I’m at work, but you make coming home so much fun.
Isaac, how you’ve changed in just the two weeks since your 8-month birthday! I can hardly keep up. Literally. (Spoiler alert – he’s mastered the forward crawl!)