8 months

Steven turned 8 months on Monday. He is growing like a weed--just starting to grow out of his 9 month clothes and into his 12 months. He's also starting to chub up a little bit, finally, helped along by the fact that he is an eating machine. We haven't weighed him in a while, but just lifting and carrying him I can tell the difference from just a few weeks ago.

He's made a lot of motor milestones lately, too. He can crawl now and it quite quick about it. It's still not "real" crawling up on his hands and knees, but more of the wounded-soldier-dragging-himself-by-his-arms crawling (which, Mike, is different than the "army crawl" which is also on the belly but does involve the legs taking an active roll). Regardless, it gets the job done and I have a heck of a time keeping up with him. No more running upstairs to throw in a load of laundry and leaving him downstairs in the family room unattended. His favorite things to seek out are cords, so we have to watch where we plug in our laptops, phones, etc. We're also going to have to move our TV into the corner so we can plug everything in behind the console and thwart him a bit more. In the meantime I can always stick him in his exersaucer if I need to keep him contained and out of trouble while I get things done.

I love cords--they are fun to shake!

A few days ago he started standing independently as well. He had kind of done it before for about 2 seconds at a time, but this time it was for about 10 seconds straight. He looked pleased, surprised, and a little apprehensive all at once. He's been practicing every day, and only really falls once he tries to take a step. He'll figure out walking before we know it. I'm glad and scared all at the same time.

Crawling is great--I can get to all kinds of new toys!