post-baby post: 8 Months

On February 17th, we had Junah's 8 month check up. Here are his stats:

Height - 29 inches (88%)
Weight - 23 pounds 4 ounces (93%)
Head Circumference - 47 centimeters (95%)

Here's what Junah's been up to:

This month he got his first stomach bug. He got his first cold during Thanksgiving when he was at Thatha and Patti's house. At that time, we considered taking him to the doctor in VA, but he worked through it on his own. This time, he puked like a little exorcist after his fever spiked to 104; it was very disturbing and so hard to see our baby so sick. But he worked through that pretty quickly and was back to his happy old self in no time.
He has also started showing a little more of his personality. He buzzes and spits (more like blowing raspberries) when he's mad. He has a very high pitched scream that he uses liberally to express his excitement and just to experiment with his voice. He laughs a lot and tries to distract me from putting him to bed with his smiles.
He has officially outgrown all of his containment devices (bouncy seat, hammock) so he's on to the co-sleeper (pack n play). He pulls himself up and started this month standing while holding the rails but progressed to standing without holding on. He is able to get up to standing on his own outside the pack n play too. He can do so by pulling up on one of us (he will grab ANYTHING including hair or skin for an assist); he stands unassisted now and it's so cute! (He pulls himself to standing in the laundry basket too which is a little scary.) He also balances on all fours like he wants to crawl so it seems like he'll be honing that skill in the coming weeks.
He ate his first "real food" which was just mashed up bananas. He was very dramatic about how disgusting he thought it was complete with hysterical faces and gagging. We're going to wait a while to introduce more whole foods.
Here are some other random things he's up to: he claps; he pats his toy drum because knows it will make noise (aka music) when he does and he dances to the music; we got him a walker to replace the containment devices he outgrew and he loves it though has strict time limits in there; he can un-velcro his diaper; he cried for the first time when I left him alone with his dad (luckily that did not last and I am able to leave without incident); he swan dives out of my arms in protest sometimes when I'm trying to put him to sleep or when he is having some teething pain; he loves storytime at the library where they read books and sing songs - it's so fun to see how excited he gets to participate and to watch the other kids; and he LOVES the book Goodnight Moon.

Here are some pictures: