Eight Months Old (by Matthew)

I can sum up my eighth month of life in a single word, folks. It's spelled M-O-B-I-L-I-T-Y. Yes, that's right--shortly after I hit the seven-month mark, I took off crawling. And life will never be the same.

Meg is the special beneficiary of my new skill. Since I practically idolize my sister, I am happy to follow her anywhere she goes. She thinks this is great, and loves to walk from room to room saying, "Coming, Buddy! Coming!" (She means "come here.") Then when I start plodding toward her, she shrieks with laughter and says, "He gonna getchoo!" Then she moves on to another spot and we do the whole thing again. It's our own primitive brand of tag, and I am always "it".

Of course, me being mobile means that I have the capacity to make my sister very unhappy as well. All I have to do is head for a toy that belongs to her. Or a toy that she thinks belongs to her because heretofore I have been too little to enjoy it. So Daddy and Mommy have begun to navigate the wide, wide river of teaching us to share and prefer one another's pleasure to our own. It looks like it'll be a pretty long voyage.

Crawling means that I can express some of my preferences better than I have before. It means that I can choose where I want to go, what I want to see and touch. I'm very drawn to things that spin or rotate, things like fans, our desk chair, my sister's doll stroller wheels, and her sit-and spin.

I like to find a seat under the chair or beside the stroller and see if I can get my fairly uncoordinated little hands to make stuff start rolling.

At times I remind Mommy of a miniature auto-mechanic, particularly when I'm under the desk chair. It's sort of like when they crank a car up on those big jacks at a tire shop and the guys stand under it.

So far we've only had one major, crawling-related accident. This is how it went from Mommy's perspective. We were at Nana's house one day last week, and the door to Cubby's basement apartment was open. Everyone (all six adults, plus Meg) was distracted for a moment, and no one noticed me taking off toward the door. After a moment, Meg approached the stairs, laughed delightedly at something she saw further down, and bounded after it. Noticing this, Mommy suddenly realized that I was nowhere to be seen. In the split second that followed, I was heard crying, as if at a distance. "Where's Matthew?" cried Daddy, who was closest to the door, and raced down the basement stairs. Somehow, I had made my way down the first four stairs to a landing, then down another seven or eight stairs to the second landing. Only then did I begin to cry, and even then I stopped as soon as Daddy snatched me up. Just a little confused, apparently, or frightened--not hurt. Thank God that those steps have nice, thick carpeting! (Ever since then, when we visit Nana's house, the door to those stairs always seems to be closed...)

I continue to enjoy solid food, in quantities that rather startle my parents. This month I added sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, asparagus, apple sauce, winter squash, yogurt, cottage cheese, prune juice, and blueberry-and-pomegranate juice to my diet. Yesterday I got my first taste of non-pureed (or fork-smashed) food: Monterey Jack cheese! I even managed to get a few pieces in my mouth using my own fingers!

My cutest characteristic (so Mommy says) is the little dance that I do about thirty times a day. If you remember the brief head-bobbing I did in that pre-crawl video from a couple of months ago, you already have a taste of it. I'm just really into jerking my head around--sort of a cross between nodding and the head movement for the Walk-Like-An-Egyptian dance. I almost always do it when I'm happy or excited. A guy's gotta have some way of expressing his enthusiasm, right?

The very latest thing I'm doing is vocalizing--lots and lots and lots. Describing the sounds I make is... difficult. You might say that my favorite noise is a prolonged, happy sounding groan that escalates in volume until it eventually ends in a squeal. Pretty hard to imagine, isn't it? Well, I also do some simpler da-da-da's on occasion. My talking brings Mommy much delight during the day, as it is another thing that I usually do to express happiness. (Are you detecting that I am overall a pretty happy guy?)

Last of all, Mommy says she just has to boast about how good I was today. She went to Virginia for Aunt Elsbeth's bridal shower, and since she was going to be gone for a long time, she needed to take me with her. (I still don't do bottles, thank you very much.) Well, we were at that shower for a solid three hours, and I got hardly any afternoon nap (on top of a rudely shortened morning one), and all of these strange ladies were talking to me and holding me, and there were no toys or other children to entertain me. And I was an angel. I barely made so much as a squawk the whole time! (Although there was a very enthusiastic one that I managed to time just as Aunt Els unwrapped some fancy lingerie). All of the ladies said very kind things to Mommy about my behavior. This blessed her very much, because she was a little nervous about having me there, lest I be a distraction. Well, glad I could serve ya, Mommy.

Believe it or not, I am quite happy in this picture. I'm just in the middle of "talking" to Mom, and that requires intense concentration.

Still not getting the whole smile-for-the-camera thing.

But if someone sitting beside the camera can provide a diversion, then you might be able to capture a little grin.