8 Months Old Today

Luke is 8 months old today. Insert cliche expressions about how quickly time passes.

What's been new recently? Lots of trying time, but also lots of fun times.

Separation Anxiety: Luke seems to be having some separation anxiety and it's unfortunately just me that can comfort him during that time as hard as my husband has tried. It made the two nights I tried to go out (once for a girls' night out and the other for a knitting class) this month end early with a text from J saying that Luke had woken up and was screaming and wouldn't calm down no matter what he did. I know it was hard on J to feel like there was nothing he could do to help Luke. And sure enough, as soon as Luke heard me in the house, he calmed down. I know this stage doesn't last forever and I'll eventually get to go do things in the evening again, but it's definitely challenging right now.

Eczema: Luke has occasionally had a very small (dime-sized or smaller) dry patch of skin on his arm or leg, but it was something we just put lotion on and didn't really get concerned about. But lately it started to spread and also to turn more pink so I took him to the doctor on Friday. He has eczema, so we were given a prescription for hydrocortisone cream and also told to use lotion (and to continue with our habit of bathing him every three days with very little soap). The doctor and I brainstormed a bit but weren't able to really figure out a cause for it. So that's something we'll be working on. I'm thinking it is food related. I had been just having him try lots of new foods with no waiting in between new foods and no keeping track of what he ate, so now we're back to just a couple of foods that he had at the beginning with no reaction and we'll start slowly introducing new foods back in to see if we find a culprit. The good news is that after just a few days of treatment, the eczema is nearly all cleared up, so that makes me feel even more like it could be food related since that was the only thing we changed in the past few days.

Teething: Two weeks ago from Friday, I was cleaning Luke's gums as usual and noticed a sharp point on his bottom gums. Sure enough, it is the tip of a tooth poking through. Two weeks later and the tooth is still in the exact same place. He was a little fussy over the past two weeks, but that kicked into overdrive the past few days and he's been going from perfectly happy playing on the floor to screaming machine in 5 seconds flat. It's also made our nights really bad as he is not sleeping well. We've tried a few different remedies but nothing really seems to work well right now. I have a few more things to try, so we'll keep working on it. But I really hope this tooth comes fully in soon so we can get past this. Of course, there are all the other teeth to worry about, but we'll just work on one at a time.

And now the good stuff:

Movement: Luke isn't crawling yet, but he's really starting to make motions toward getting there. He's always liked being on his tummy, but he seemed to be content with just being able to spin around in a circle to reach toys. Now he's starting to really try to get toys that are out of his reach. He has inched himself forward a few times. And he's also been pushing up on his arms and pulling his legs under him a lot more often. The other night, he did that and then did the classic rocking back and forth motion, which was really exciting to see since he hadn't done that before. And I've seen him on the video monitor move himself forward (pushing with his legs) in his crib. So I'm thinking that he's well on his way toward crawling though we probably still have some work to go there.

Laughing: When he's not in pain from his teeth, Luke is a rather cheerful happy boy. And lately he's been really happy especially when J is playing with him. We've been able to get some really great laughs to come out of him (tickling usually works best for this). It's a beautiful sound.

Exploring: He's really gotten interested in the various toys that we have around him and also in feeling our faces (have to remove our glasses first!!) and looking out the window. He definitely wants to know what all is going on around him. And that includes wanting to "pet" the cats. Right now petting involves grabbing some fur so we're trying to work on how to actually pet the cats. The cats so far are being patient and have actually been coming closer to him. I'm sure that will change for a while once Luke is able to start chasing after them!

Weather: The weather is a little on the chilly side this week, but it's actually been a great spring so far. I plan to spend a lot more time out of the house now. Yesterday we bought a jogging stroller, which will be much easier to take over the bumpy sidewalks (and the grass) on our way to the park so I plan to do that several times each week. And on Saturday, the little zoo in the park within walking distance opened up, so I look forward to taking Luke there (probably tomorrow for the first time) quite a bit this summer. We are also planning trips to the zoo in Indianapolis as well as the Children's Museum this summer, both of which I'm really excited about.

But for now I'll leave you with a few pictures of Luke that I took this morning.