Dexter is 8 Months Old!

Dexter is EIGHT months old! I can't believe it. :( He's practically a toddler - both in size and in energy level. By our best at-home estimates, he weighs about 25 pounds and is about 30 inches tall. (When did we stop calling it "long?") That's 3.6 pounds and 0.75 inches more than his official 6 month numbers. Sounds like progress to me. (Our height number may be way off. He's TALL!)

He has three teeth broken through on the bottom. Two have broken through on top, and 2 more are |thisclose| to showing their ridged baby tooth goodness up there. That's right. Five (almost 7) teeth in less than a month! He's really handled it like a champ. He's pretty shy about showing off those pearly whites, but we managed to get a shot of the bottom ones during his monthly photo shoot. (You'll almost definitely need to view the larger version to see them. Baby teeth are small!)

He still has his gorgeous blue eyes (we're now brave enough to think they might stick around) and that gorgeous, even head of soft and shiny strawberry blonde hair.

While we wouldn't quite say he's close to standing on his own, he is doing a lot more with only support with one hand, and it seems to us that he's putting less weight on the supporting hands and more on his feet. We'll call it progress. And, really, the child has no need to walk, because there's just about nowhere he can't get to by crawling and climbing.

We're also seeing some progress in the verbal development area. Most days, we are graced with a handful (or more) of consonant sounds as well as plenty of vowel-sound cooing and squealing and "aaah"-ing. Still nothing consistent, but at least he seems to be aware of what his vocal cords are for.

Sleep, sadly, is a different story. We seem to be in the midst of yet another sleep regression.  The night of June 4, he was up at 10:30, 11:30, and 12:30, and then from 3:15 - 4:45, then again at 5:45, when I gave him a bottle in his crib. (No, we don't typically do this, but these were extreme circumstances.)  He was up for the day and HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY at 6:45. That probably isn't a typical night (more typical is waking at 10:30, 11:30, and 12:30, then sleeping through until 6:30 or 7), and the night before that he slept straight through from 8:00 PM - 7:40 AM (also very highly unusual lately, I promise).  It all seems very inconsistent, and we can't figure out what's going on.  Eventually, we just go through the list - diaper check, baby orajel, bottle, gas drops, tylenol/motrin/benadryl if he's sick or just feeling cruddy, humidifier. Eventually, something sticks or he just gets wiped out again and goes back to sleep.  He's getting VERY fond of just sortof chilling in Mom or Dad's arms, though.

So, without further delay, here are some of his 8 month photos. He's a squirmy little guy; these are getting harder and harder to get. (I love that last action shot. Thank his Dad for that one.)