Happy Halloween!

... from your favorite dragon.

Mmm... pumpkin!

8 months, 2000 hits

You: How old is Owen now?
Me: 8 months, today.
You: Is he crawling yet?
Me: No, not unless you count the "wounded soldier" crawl where he drags himself around with one (his right) elbow. He also gets up on all fours and revs back and forth, but as soon as he wants to move anywhere, he drops down on his belly for the wounded soldier bit. He's been rolling around like mad, and seeming "about to crawl," since late June.
You: Are you still nursing him?
Me: No - about two or three weeks ago he started absolutely refusing to nurse. I kept offering at every feeding, and gave him breastmilk in a bottle for a while, until it became clear that this is what they mean by "self-weaning." So now, after 17 months, I'm back to eating for one.
You: Does he have teeth yet?
Me: No, despite showing signs of teething (drooling, chomping on things) for months and months, no teeth yet! It turns out both Mike and I were late teethers (at 10 months), so it could still be a while.
You: What is his newest trick?
Me: Waving! Saturday morning he was sitting on his Nana's lap, and I waved to him, and to my utter surprise and amazement, he waved back! He's been doing it off and on ever since. So exciting!
You: How's the blogging going?
Me: We got our 2000th visit today. Thank you so much for making it a success!

Cheerio!

After Owen's 6-month checkup in August, we found out that we had to start feeding him. OK, so I know that not long before that I posted a cute little picture of him eating some rice cereal. But that was kind of fun and casual - oh look, he's so cute gagging himself with a spoon. It wasn't REAL. At his 6-month appointment, though, it turned out that our hungry little bundle of joy was drinking twice as much milk as he needed to, and was more than ready for three meals a day. I asked the doctor what sorts of foods he should eat, like, which pureed vegetables and fruits he might enjoy. And she said, yes, all of those, and also, Cheerios, and... meat! It was a difficult moment. The thought of having to think about his nutritional requirements, and balancing his need for food and milk, made me almost miss the days of nursing him every three hours around the clock.

Finally, almost two months later, we have introduced rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, squash, apples, bananas, peaches, pears, Cheerios, barley, corn, and (today) beef. He strongly prefers food to milk, and it's a struggle to get him to drink the 20-24 oz of breastmilk or formula a day the doctor recommends. But he loves food, and he's not at all picky. He opens his mouth wide for every bite, and cries, or screams, if the bites don't come fast enough.

A few weeks ago we started giving him Cheerios. After observing him grabbing toys for months, we had thought of him as a rather dexterous baby... he could get just about any toy into his mouth. But the Cheerios were a whole new world. We learned, for example, that he has absolutely no idea that he has thumbs. I don't just mean opposable thumbs. I mean any thumbs at all. And there is no error correction - once he manages to pick up a single Cheerio, usually between his index and middle fingers, he gives that Cheerio one - and only one - chance to make it into his mouth. If it misses, which it usually does - sticking to his chin, or his cheek, or staying on his hand - it doesn't matter, he just dives right in, reaching for the next Cheerio (with his index and middle fingers, of course).