Alexander at 8 Months

Alex turned eight months old on the twelfth of January and I am left wondering where the time has gone. At the same time, it feels like he has been with us for ever! He is an absolute treasure and continues to be the object of affection for his older siblings. The novelty of a baby brother still hasn't worn off and if anything they delight in him more and more as he grows and gets more 'interesting'.

Alex is a very happy baby and smiles readily. He has the most delightful giggle which we hear often, but Lily is still the only one who can reduce him to uncontrollable fits of laughter. He has a real soft spot for Lily! He is also quite the Daddy's boy and wants Mark to pick him up the second he gets home from work. Mummy just won't do once Daddy gets home! He still only wants me at night though...typical!

Alex now goes to bed at seven and sleeps until around one or two. He then has a quick bottle and sleeps until around 4.30am at which point he normally comes into bed and sleeps with me until around seven. I did the same with Emma when she was a baby. Eventually the 4.30am waking got later and later until she stayed in her own bed until seven. I'm hoping the same will happen with Alex!

Alex is a baby who likes his food. He is now on three meals a day and has a decided preference for savoury foods. He treats commercial jars of baby food with the contempt they deserve, preferring my home-cooked offerings. You should see this boy hoover up a dish of fish pie! He loves finger foods and really doesn't make much mess when eating them. If you give him toast, he eats the lot (including the crust), there is never anything left to clear away! The problem with him liking food so much is that he has next to no interest in his milk any more, which is why, I suspect, that he is still waking for a bottle in the night. He often drinks more in one night feed than he does all day!

I have no idea what he weighs at the moment, but he is outgrowing some of his 6-9 month clothes already. He seems very big to me, but that might just be because Emma was so very petite as a baby (and still is!) He still has no teeth, but is by far the most dribbly of my babies. He can now sit unaided, though has a tendency to topple sideways so I always put cushions around him. 

Alex is very mobile, though not in a conventional way. Like his big brother at the same age, Alex has worked out that he can get around quite effectively by rolling. He assesses which position he needs to be in to get to where he wants to go, pulls himself around until he is pointing the right way and then rolls over and over until he gets there. He is surprisingly fast and into everything! He has a phenomenally good pincer grasp, which means there is no item too small for him to pick up and try to put in his mouth. He is keeping me busy!

In looks, he is the spitting image of Tom at the same age (except Tom was bald!), but in personality he reminds me so much of Emma as a baby. He has the same easy-going nature and sunshiny disposition and, unfortunately, the exact same grunt of frustration that she had. The only baby noise that seems to be able to get under my skin and two of my babies have done it! Alex has just decided he wants to be able to move forward, but can't work out how to do it, so I'm hearing his frustrated grunting quite a lot at the moment!

I wanted to record all this now because I know how quickly babies change and how quickly we forget what they were like. I so wish I had recorded more from when Tom and Lily were babies. I didn't know I would forget so much! Alex is growing so fast and I am trying to soak up every moment of his babyhood...even the grunting! They don't stay little for long.

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