the rosier rundown: Paxton is 8 Months Old

Wow. That last month went by really fast. A lot has happened with Pax in the last month. Here are the highlights...

Paxton has learned to pull himself up to stand. He has even started cruising while pushing objects he is holding onto. And he tries to cruise along a piece of stationary furniture on a daily basis. This also means that he's into everything. He's a very curious little man; just like his brother was at his age.

Paxton absolutely loves apples (pureed into a sauce and whole pieces). We bought a big jar of organic applesauce and we mix some into just about all of his meals. The twins and I have been busy making him all kinds of purees over the last few weeks and freezing it all. he eats about 4-6 ounces of homemade baby food each day. He really loves bananas, cantaloupe, oatmeal, and peaches. He likes other stuff, too, but just not as much (like avocado, carrots, cranberries, and peas). Some of the concoctions we've made include apple-cinnamon-oatmeal (loved it), cran-apple-oatmeal (loved it), and peach-pear-oatmeal (tolerated it). He really enjoys feeding himself, too. Whenever we go to a restaurant, we just bring a few apple, celery, or cantaloupe slices for him and he just goes to town. He's also still nursing and eating 2-3 bottles of formula a week. And he greatly prefers breast milk. In fact, he fights Wes every time he tries to give him formula.

Paxton giggles and laughs a lot. And it's mostly due to his siblings' antics. He watches them intently play for hours on end and squeals in delight when they pay him the littlest amount of attention. Vivi likes singing to Paxton and Gavin likes making silly faces at him. Pax absolutely loves everything about Gavin and Vivian and wants to be with them all of the time. If they're in a different room, he crawls to them. If he's in the room with them and they leave him, he screams in agony until they come back. He definitely loves his siblings and can't wait to be just like them.

This past month, Pax has started to act like a real baby. Let me explain. Although I think that all three instances were due to him being sick or teething problems, they still happened and so I'll discuss. Up until a few weeks ago, Paxton had never woken up and cried in the middle of the night. Okay, he had woken up and cried, but he was able to be consoled in less than a minute. By the first month, we had already experienced several up-for-an-hour-or-more-rocking-or-bouncing-a-screaming-baby nights with the twins. But not with Paxton. Until this past month. The first time (around Christmas when everyone was sick), Pax woke up with a fever, screaming his head off, and completely inconsolable. This lasted for about 30 minutes. Then he went back to sleep (I guess after the Tylenol set in) and I figured it was a fluke. Then, about a week later, Pax woke up around 9:45 screaming and writhing and shedding real tears. It lasted for about 45 minutes. We never figured out what was wrong that night. Then this past Friday night, Paxton woke up around 10:15. Again, I'm not really sure what was wrong. All I know is that he had been drooling a lot that day and had a mild fever the previous night right before bed (maybe teething?). It lasted about 45-60 minutes and then he finally fell asleep on top of me. Craziness. It's not like our little man to be upset at all during the night and especially not for that long. Hoping they were isolated incidents. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of teeth, he doesn't have any. Yet. But I have a feeling that they are on their way.

In growth news, Paxton is officially too big for his infant car seat. The weight goes up to 22lbs and our little man is 22.5lbs (according to our home scale). So, we're getting him a big kid seat this week (we would like it to match the twins' car seats, so we have to order it online and have it shipped). He's also comfortably wearing most 12 month clothes (although some brands are too small) and some 18 month clothes (although some brands are too big).

Pax is still co-sleeping with us after the first wake of the night. He naps in his crib twice a day (morning and mid-day) and then we put him to bed between 7 and 7:30pm in his crib as well. He was only waking up once in the middle of the night, but in the last week or so, he's developed the bad habit of waking up anywhere from 2-4 times each night. I know. What the hell, Pax? The good news is that he just nurses for a few minutes and goes back to sleep. Here's hoping that it's just a phase (I remember the twins going through different sleeping patterns around this age).

When it comes to the pacifier, Paxton has a love-hate relationship. Paxton absolutely loves the paci during daylight hours. He would have it in his mouth all day long if we let him. But during the night? No sir. He doesn't want anything to do with it. Weird, right? He will not take the paci at all, under any circumstances at night. Oh well.

Paxton babbles a lot, too. But, he has yet to say any real words or sign anything to us yet (yes, we're trying to do more sign language with him). We have a feeling that he's going to be more like Gavin than Vivian in the talking department.