8 Months Old!

Colin is 8 months old as of yesterday and he couldn't be changing faster. Just a couple of weeks ago he started crawling. About 2 days after that, he began to pull himself up on things. Now he even takes some liberties after he's pulled himself up on something to start side-stepping to get to something else (cruising, I believe it is termed). As with all new skills, there have been some learning curves, both for him and his parents. So far most of the trauma has been him falling when something he is hanging onto shifts, or if he forgets to hang onto something while he is standing. Luckily so far there haven't been too many bumps and bruises - but there have been many 'bad parent' moments when we aren't quite prepared for his sudden shift of balance and he falls. I think they mostly scare him as it doesn't take him long to settle down, but still - doesn't make you feel like a rockstar parent.

The biggest hurdle in the past 2 days has been sleep. He suddenly figured out how to stand in his pack-n-play (after we realized he could do this, we watched him do it - he kind of smashes his face into the webbing and works his way up until he can reach the top edge), so putting him down for sleep has been challenging. This is mostly because although he has become an expert at climbing up, he has not figured out how to get down. So, we put him down for either a nap or for the night, and soon after he has managed to stand up (we suppose). This is followed by crying until we come in and place him back down and leave the room. This repeats until he manages to realize he is tired enough to fall asleep. The first night he could do this, it took almost an hour and a half. We were having flashbacks to sleep training when he was 4 months old. Luckily, since then, it has only been an intervention or two until he settles down.

Alright, time to get some work done. Happy 8 months little one!