Sitting and Crawling

My little JJ finally learned how to sit and crawl!  The other two were sitting very well and learning to crawl by six months so I was getting a little worried that JJ was creeping up on eight months with neither milestone in sight.  But alas, I had nothing to worry about.  We started setting him on the floor and he soon learned how to balance himself.  He looks so little sitting there on the floor, sitting in the bouncer seat elevates him so he doesn't look so small.

 It didn't take long after he learned how to sit before he learned that he could get to things that were previously unreachable.  It is so fun to watch him lurching across the floor in pursuit of toys and other things lying in his reach.  He is not very good at crawling yet and has kind of a funny way of moving.  He gets up on his hands and toes with his butt way up in the air then kind of throws himself forward.  Just today he discovered the hallway to the kid's room.  I am not letting him go in there yet though because Grace and Micah were playing quietly with very small toys and I didn't want to disturb the peace. 

 Now that we have someone that puts his soggy face and damp hands on the floor all of the time the fact that we have two dogs that shed has become even more obvious.  Where I was previously vacuuming about once a week has now increased to two or three times.  And still he ends up with clothes and a face sprinkled with dog fur, random fuzz and anything else that he can find in the carpet. 

It seemed like JJ didn't learn anything new for a couple of months there, then all of the sudden he changed so much.  It is probably not a big deal but I was pretty excited when he learned how to go from hands and knees to sitting on his own without us to help him up.  He has also started eating table food.  After the disaster that was trying to feed him baby food Eric gave him spaghetti one night and he was hooked!  Now we feed him anything we eat that is or can be smoshed up into bite-sized pieces.  He is so much happier now, I think that the fussiness from the past couple of months was mostly the result of him being hungry.  He is learning how to self feed a little too now.  That, my friend, is funny to watch!  I pour a few baby snacks on the highchair tray and he grabs a handful and stuffs it at his mouth.  Some of them go in, some drop to his lap, a few stay in his fist and the rest stick to his soggy face. 

I love watching him grow and change.  New babies change so much the first couple of days and weeks so it feels like it has been a long time since JJ has changed much.  He is now already older than the other two were when I got pregnant with the next one.  I'm excited to not be looking forward to maternity clothes!  Next up?  Sippy cup for JJ, undies for Micah and learning to recognize numbers and letters for Grace.  Looks like it will be a busy winter!