8 months.

On Friday Abe turned 8 months old. He has been in our family for almost 3 months. And even though I often remember that we missed a good chunk of his beginning, his connection to us feels so seamless today. He has stolen our hearts. All of our hearts. The older brothers adore him and love having a baby around the house. He is one amazing little boy and we are thankful that he is ours.

Abe started army crawling on July 14th, just over 7 months. Jeremy keeps saying that he looks like a wounded soldier, as he is more dominant to one side dragging his heavy little body around. And that is a pretty good description. He definitely is a heavy little thing. 22lbs and 6oz, to be exact. At 8 months we will soon be shopping for his second carseat as he is outweighing the infant seat. He typically takes 4 to 5 5oz bottles per day. He loves his solids: broccoli, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, butternut squash, peas and carrots, avocado, apples, peaches, blueberries, cherries, bananas. He is a very good eater. I hope it continues this way forever. :) He still has no teeth and it seems as though he has been teething for the entire 3 months that he's been with us. I'm hoping 8 new teeth will just all pop through at once and get it over with already! Despite not having teeth, he has figured out how to gnaw on fresh blueberries, fresh avocado and baby puffs. Though he hasn't quite caught on to self feeding yet, so I often slip those little bites in his mouth at the dinner table. He just hasn't gotten the coordination of hand to mouth yet.

This month we did put Abe in the nursery at church. Today was his third Sunday and he did great. The past 2 weeks they have been so kind to bring him to us wherever we are if he became upset or inconsolable. That was our request. Last Sunday, our preschool director came almost running down the hall to our 4 year old class that we teach with him wailing in her arms. Big fat tears. She handed him off to me and the crying immediately stopped. Today he did fabulous. He was in the nursery for 3 hours and they said he did great. I feel like we are taking baby steps with little Abe, but he is responding well to these little changes in his world.

It seems like my trip to east Texas last month really screwed up the progression he was making with nighttime sleep. Since he slept in a bed with me those few nights, it feels like we took some steps backwards. So each night always ends up looking differently. And most mornings he wakes up in our bed. He always starts upstairs in his crib, but at some point he ends up joining us. He's going 10-12 hours a night without eating. So it's not hunger that wakes him any more. It's just the desire to be with mommy and daddy. And we aren't willing to fight that battle right now. He takes great naps during the day, so we do have that going for us. He normally sleeps for 1.5-2 hours in the morning and then again during the afternoon. His daytime schedule is great. Nighttime is a work in progress. Baby steps.

Tonight at dinner, he confirmed to us that he can sign the word "more". And it looked like he was trying to sign "milk" this evening also. We have JUST begun working on a few signs. So I was blown away that he started signing "more" on his own when I paused between bites of apple/avocado. The boys were pretty proud of him. Earlier in the month he was screaming at me when he wanted more puffs placed in his mouth, so I knew we had to learn that sign pronto. The screaming just wasn't doing it for me. :)
Some things I just love about Abe...he rubs his little eyes and twists his top curls with his hands when he gets really sleepy. His smile lights up when Holden and Pax get in his face...and they are in his face ALOT. He kisses me on the chin daily. Wide, open-mouthed kisses. He loves to be cuddled and rocked and sung to and I love to do all of those things with him. The list could go on and on. I love this little guy to pieces!