Eight Months

Owen, you are eight months old!
This month Owen, you...

• Starting making several new sounds. D was first at just after seven months, then T, S, and Z.
• Rolled all the way across the living room floor to play with the handle on the TV hutch. You are not crawling, but you can roll around to get something if you are motivated enough
• Got lots of comments about your pretty blue eyes.
• Were not so happy with teething. You have had a hard time cutting teeth. But finally yesterday when you turned eight months your first tooth broke through!
• Like to play with people by shaking your head back and forth really fast

I think we won't do photo shoots on the bare grass anymore.

Hmmm. What's down here?

It looks crunchy.

Drooling over crunchy thing.

Tasting crunchy thing.

Crunchy thing doesn't taste so good.

"Mark, could you grab the leaf out of Owen's mouth?"

And 20 more shots just like those.

I think I am enjoying having a baby just a little bit more this time. The good times aren't necessarily any better than with the other two it's more like the hard times don't phase me as much. I have gotten the advice about children numberless times, "Enjoy them. They grow up too fast." Mostly it's been from strangers at the grocery store. I always thought that I was doing that, but now I know that I still have more to work on in that area. Now that I've had two other babies I think I am really getting it. It's not just the good times that go by too fast, but actually the hard times go by fast too. When the baby is up in the middle of the night (again) and you are tired and helpless and don't know what to do it feels like there is no end in sight. But those moments pass and baby moves on to another stage. It all passes quickly, the good and the bad. That is what I am still learning. And little Owen, you are teaching me to be more patient, to enjoy all of your sweetness and not let get so frustrated when things don't go smoothly.