Happy 8 month birthday, Jake! (more than a few days late)

Oh my word...this kid is so precious! Jake Edward Johnson- Jake E- Jakey Jake- Little Pook turned 8 months old on Saturday. He has been 98% pure happiness in his 8 months of life.

(Give him a break, he had to have a few crying spells or he wouldn't be a normal baby. ha ha!)

Jake is currently wearing 12-24 month clothes and size 4 diapers. Current weight is approx. 24-25 pounds. He has a concentration of hair in the middle of the top of his head that, given a few more weeks, will loan itself into a nice mohawk.

Jake is making so many sounds. He does "nananana" "momamomamom" "dadadada" "babababa" and a variation of spits and raspberries. Though he doesn't call any of us by name yet, I think that he saves a special "ah-da" for his daddy. He also has special smiles that he saves for Brooklyn, Chad, and myself- we have our own individual "Jake greeting" when he sees and recognizes each of us. And of course, Jake smiles at any and all people who stop and talk to him. When he gets particularly excited, he pumps his arms and legs up & down and squeals.

He has recently started holding his arms up for us to pick up and hold him. He is also becoming better at waving hello and goodbye- though right now it's still this excited-no-coordination-one-arm flap. But you get the idea that he's trying. No forward mobility yet, unless you count the face plants, but he is getting close. When sitting, Jake starts bouncing up and down and lunges forward, placing his hands on the floor in front of him. He then stops and looks up like "now what?" He'll catch on soon enough. Besides, my house is not baby-proofed yet.

Jake is still sitting at zero count for teeth, but has the most precious toothless grin, so I don't mind. Not to mention, I am still exclusively breastfeeding, so it's nice that teeth are a non-issue here. He eats 5 times a day- three meals with food and two liquid-only. He enjoys all fruits and veggies and cereal, including rice, mixed, and oatmeal. I hope that he is always this versatile with food. We'll start him on finger foods after his 9 month check up with the doctor. Like I said, no hurry to rush him. He's doing great growing on his own.

Jake loves playing in the pack-and-play. The extra cushion also gives him a lot of comfort and confidence to roll back over and keep playing after the aforementioned face plants. Brooklyn continues to shower him with hugs, kisses, head locks, and "teeth-clenched-love-you-so-much" pats on the back. Luckily, Jake is a tough boy.

Sleeping has been going great...11-12 hours at night in his crib. However, on vacation last week, we found that Jake tends to stir around 5am, and if he becomes unswaddled, he tries to stay up for the morning. Luckily, we can usually catch it on time and reswaddle so we get another 2 hours of sleep, but the unswaddling/Houdini act that has been occuring shows us that it's probably time Jake learns to sleep unswaddled. We did it 1/2 of one night and did fine after about 45 minutes of talking, staring, rolling, and crying, but both Chad and I decided that we don't want to make any significant sleep changes until we are home from next month's beach trip (staying with three families in one house = we want a happy, sleeping Jake all week!).

So, that's Jake at 8 months. Pure joy, pure love, pure laughter, pure fun, and pure BOY.