Soren update: 8 months

I heard a beautiful sound two weeks ago - the first sounds of Soren's voice.  Sure we've heard him coo and, laugh, especially, but one evening he suddenly started making consonant sounds like da-da and ga-ga. His "talk" went from cooing to baby babble.  I just love listening to him and he laughs when I imitate him. 

Soren still laughs a lot and laughs hard.  Nothing sends him more into hysterics than Oliver and his dad.  Soren simply lights up when he sees his brother and this interaction is my favorite part about having more than one child and it warms my heart every time. 

Soren is still working on getting up onto his hands and knees, which he can do without pushing his feet against something, but he doesn't know yet what to do when he gets into the crawling position. Even though he's not crawling yet, he still gets around.  We are at the point that if we place him on the floor and step away, if we come back into the room, he's not in the same spot he was before.  His moves include pushing himself backwards on his stomach, the "reach and roll" or scooting in circles or forward or backward on his bottom. 

I'm almost afraid of writing this for fear of jinxing ourselves, but I just might declare that Soren has a nap schedule.  A little after seven months he finally seemed to be settling into a morning nap somewhere between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., lasting an hour or an hour and a half, (on a good day) and an afternoon nap somewhere between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., lasting about two hours.  If we can get this schedule to stick, we've cleared a major nap hurdle and can enjoy a routine until he drops from two naps to one.  The timing of the first nap means that we can't leave the house before 10:00 a.m., but we otherwise can't believe our luck that his second nap coincides with Oliver's.  I'd forgotten what it was like to have some dedicated quiet time for myself during nap time. 

Along with the schedule of the first and second nap, I've decided around seven months to let go of the idea of a third nap.  It always seemed like he needed one around 4:00 p.m., especially when his second nap was short-lived and ended early, but whether he actually took one was hit or miss.  Because he's generally an easy-going baby who can fight through a missed nap without a meltdown, we've decided to just let this one go.  If we're home and it seems like he really needs to nap, sure, we'll put him down, but we've stopped planning our day around this nap.  The downside is that we have to put him to bed even earlier, which means that once we come inside to get dinner ready, we're in for the evening.  Dinner is between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. and then we're getting Soren ready for bed as soon as we finish eating and he's often asleep by 6:15 p.m., if not earlier.   

You'd think that all the positive transformations in Soren's sleep schedule would mean more rest for me, but I've been so tired for quite awhile now.  My lack of sleep is nothing like what I experienced when Soren was sleeping in hour or hour-and-a-half chunks, because I was so tired at that point in his life that I had painful headaches for days at a time.  But just when I didn't think I could go on any longer, I'd crash and sleep long enough to make me feel human again.  My problem now is that although Soren is technically sleeping through the night, the latest we can get him to consistently sleep is 5:15 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. Sometimes he's up an hour earlier than that.  Although another round of sleep training nixed earlier middle-of-the-night wakings, we haven't been able to make too much progress in extending his sleep in the morning.  Anyway, if it's 5:15 a.m. by the time I get Soren back down and can't fall back asleep myself and then have to get up for work at 6:15 a.m., well, too many mornings of starting my day at 4:45 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. has left me exhausted. 

The good news is that despite his early wakings, Soren is still such a happy, lovable baby.  He smiles at anyone who even glances his way.  He's doing this really cute move right now where he'll smile at someone, the person will smile back and Soren acts bashful and tucks his head into me.  It's not just adults he's into either.  He notices other babies and make an attempt to interact with them in a way he doesn't with older kids.  His version of interacting, though, is "talking" or squealing at them or trying to grab their faces. 
I'm still amazed at how well Soren does with solid foods.  He's rarely not in the mood to eat and gives pretty much anything a try, even foods I'm not sure he can figure out how to eat, like spaghetti.  But he manages to get something in his mouth every time.  We still get excited to see how much he's eaten, only to discover when we take him out of his booster seat that 90% of what he was served ended up in his lap.  There are many dinners when he goes straight to the bathtub. 

The poor guy is prone to constipation, which means we've been pushing fruit lately, but we're not sure what to do about it.  I'm not sure if the constipation is because he's taking in more formula than Oliver did at this age, or if he's just more prone to it, or both.  We've also been trying to offer more water and I'm encouraging myself to keep sticking with pumping.

Another bi-product of the solids is chapped skin!  His chin, cheeks and a spot on his neck have gotten so chapped from all the moisture sitting on his skin from eating or drooling.  I got a special skin cream for him, which was helping, if only we could have kept it permanently applied.  Eventually we got to smearing pure Vaseline on his face, particularly right before he ate, because then we could wipe his face without making the chafing worse.  Even with the Vaseline it looked like we were loosing the battle and I came super close to making a visit to the running store a few blocks from my house to buy a stick of Body Glide, which runners use to prevent chafing.  I remember my brother, who runs marathons, saying that it lasts longer than Vaseline.  Maybe his skin finally toughened up or he's drooling less, (he's definitely past the spit-up stage!) because before I resorted to smearing Body Glide on my baby, we seem to suddenly have the chafing under control. 

Overall, Soren is simply a happy and lovable baby.  It actually makes me sad to think that he's going to go through the toddler teething and tantrum stage.  I remember Oliver at this age when he was the happiest baby in the world to be his mommy's sidekick when I'd carry him around on one hip.  He was definitely all about me and I see that in Soren now.  It's not surprising that I couldn't believe Oliver could ever throw a tantrum since he was my first, but even though I know what's coming, I still can't imagine it with Soren.  Yet, I know that stage will come and there's nothing I can do to soak up any more of Soren's lovableness than I already have.