eight months

Talk about your leaps and bounds! I can't believe we've gone from Fry dragging himself across the floor to him doing laps around the salon in his walker in just one month! This kid learns so fast - though it took him about ten days to figure out sitting down once he started pulling himself up, everything else has come at lightning speed. We bought the walker on Sunday and by the end of the day he could basically go in any direction he wanted, whether it was going forwards or backwards. Yesterday we had a little barbecue with a few of Stéphane's colleagues at the school, so we brought the walker with us. He had two little sisters to play with (they were about 3 and 4 I think) and it wasn't long before he was chasing them across the courtyard!!

Fry is also sitting up on his own without any assistance. Most mornings now Fry is either sitting up or standing up at the end of his crib when I go to get him in the morning. He also never stops moving! We can't keep him in the bouncy seat unattended anymore, as he's so strong he can flip right out of it still attached.

Just in the last week it seems that Fry is trying to drop a nap, much to my chagrin! I have the hardest time getting him to stay down for his noon nap, and hey, if he's not tired it just ain't gonna happen, so now he ends up napping a little later, waking up for a bottle in the afternoon, playing a little and then napping some more! This might be because of the heatwave we're experiencing right now, also. I went to get him the other day and his room was a scary 34°C (93°F)!! Now we are happy if we can keep his room down to 30°C (86°F) and we keep the "air cooling system" (a glorified fan that uses ice and water to bring down the temperature) pointed at the crib nearly all the time.

We're still holding steady with two teeth on the bottom, though we're expecting new ones to come through the top any time now. Fry is down to two bottles a day, morning and afternoon, and eats a pot of food and applesauce for lunch and a pot of food fortified with milk and baby yogurt for dinner. He still has as rough time with any kind of solid food besides baby food; every couple of weeks we'll try something soft but the texture really puts him off. A couple of days early I started introducing 8 month baby food, and the one with small pasta didn't go over very well at all. So far the others are just fine.

Other than that, Fry is still the happiest baby in the world, charms everyone he comes in contact with, loves going to the itinerant daycare on Friday afternoons and has no problems leaping into the arms of strangers. Though recently, he wants Mommy's attention more and more, so this period of openness may be coming to a close... Teething days are awful, lack of communication is frustrating, but his smile lights up the room and we're having a ball!