Portrait of an 8-month-old

Colin is now 8 months old (almost 9!). I thought this last year of Jason's fellowship would drag...instead it's flown by.

The Good

• He's sleeping through the night on a regular basis. And by that I mean 12 straight hours. Hooray for uninterrupted sleep!
• He's napping easily and regularly during the days, and has learned how to take effective catnaps in the car since we're usually on the go.
• He's growing great. He weighs 21.5 pounds and is 30 inches long.
• He's still an extremely easy baby.

The Bad

• He loves to eat and loves food. This would be "good" except that if you have "real" food in front of him and try to feed him "baby" food, he gets very upset.
• Along these lines, when he's no longer hungry, instead of turning away or closing his mouth, he lets you put the food in, then raspberries it out back at you in a spray. This is especially fun when it's sweet potatoes. That orange puree is great to clean off the walls.
• He still blows out his diaper regularly, sometimes several times a day. This is probably also related to how much he loves to eat.
• He is extremely determined to become mobile and is just weeks, maybe days, away from crawling. This is bad because I am too cheap and too lazy to babyproof a house I'm moving from in 5 weeks. If you see him attempting to crawl, please knock him down (gently).
• He has a "happy" shriek so shrill it defies description. Jason's family thinks he inherited from him, my family blames me. I was able to capture it on camera. It actually gets much louder than this, often in public places (like during sacrament meeting), but you should still probably turn down your speaker volume if you choose to watch it.

The Adorable

• He spends 85% of his waking hours smiling, if not more.
• He has moved on from cooing to babbling, and loves to say, "dadadada," "mamamamama," and "bababababa."
• He is so, so cuddly. I just love that!!
• He adores his family and gets so excited any time he sees me, Jason, or Ethan. When they're riding in the back of the car, Ethan can make him laugh and laugh. I love listening to it.
• I think he's so cute, but his personality is even more adorable than his perfect little cheeks. We just love him to pieces!