8 months, day 4 - The 8-month update

Well folks, it seems like we are back in business. Augie's returned to a fairly normal bedtime and up-time schedule and he's getting in a few longer naps, which is fantastic for all of us. And it means I have a couple minutes to share with you how he's doing.

First, I'll start by saying that we went to music class yesterday and it was fantastic. Unlike last week, when he melted down and cried and cried, yesterday he was happy to be in class, he loved the other babies and the music, and he seemed to have an all-around great time. In fact, he loved the other babies so much that he crawled around giving out kisses! He kissed three other babies while we were singing songs - he'd just crawl away from me, up to another baby, and then lean in with an open mouth and smackeroo! The other moms seemed to think it was pretty darned cute, too. When the drums came out, Augie climbed on top of ours and then crawled onto the next one over - guess he loves the beat.

So, as he enters his 9th month of life, here's Augie: he has 6 teeth (and likely more tucked away where we can't yet see); he's perfected his own spiderman crawl; he climbs everything he can, and is even starting to let go with his hands and stand for a second, which terrifies me; he's beginning to cruise the furniture; he has several words ("mama" and "baba" are the most common) and is starting to babble more; he bangs objects together to make music; he loooves to give us zerberts (see here and here if you don't know what a zerbert is); and he showers his Mama with kisses, which might be the most amazing thing on this list.

Would you believe that I actually thought this would work? These may be the outtakes from our photo shoot, but there were no non-outtakes.