Happy eighth month birthday, Benjamin!!!!

What an month it's been, too! I mean, besides everything going on with Daddy, you've been super busy growing and learning.

You started crawling this month. It's still not a particularly graceful process, but you can get yourself across a room using this knee/belly combination of movements. What you do is get up on your knees, move forward a bit, flop down on your belly, and then repeat. Here lately you've started getting frustrated with how much effort this takes and how slowly you go and you've begun doing this 'push up' thing where you get up not on your knees but your toes and stick your fanny in the air. Eventually I think that all of this will result in a more efficient crawling motion, but again, you are still able to get yourself around doing what you're doing. And it's ever so much fun to watch you!

At the end of your sixth month you'd begun getting a bottom tooth. Well, now you have both bottom teeth. The one poked through all alone, but it was joined almost immediately by the other one. And based on the puffiness of your upper gums, as well as your desire to chomp things, I'm guessing that your top teeth will be in by the end of this month.

In light of your new teeth we've begun giving you the stage 3 baby foods, as well as some finger foods such as cheerios and tiny pieces of whatever we're eating. You can use a pincher grasp, but you still need a lot of practice perfecting it. Generally you can pick up the cheerios (or other foods), but keeping the food in your fingers while you get it to your mouth is still a challenge. I'm sure by the end of this month that will no longer be the case.

You've been drinking out of sippy cups and taking sips of water out of our glasses, but we've had to hold the container for you. Just yesterday, though, I gave you some formula in a cup that has handles and you picked up the cup and drank all by yourself!!

Your brother and sister have also reached some pretty important milestones this past month: Lizzie finished up seventh grade yesterday and this past Monday William completed his last high school course and he will graduate tonight. (Your Aunt Pat and Nana Carol are coming over this evening to watch you so that Aunt Lizzie, Daddy (hopefully), Lizzie, and I can attend graduation.)

Yep, it's been a wild month. You've been busy growing and developing and doing your wonderful baby things, Daddy's had major surgery, your sister has finished her next-to-the-last year of middle school, and your brother is graduating and getting ready to leave the house to head for college.

Whew!

Mommy's tired!

But it's a good tired. :-)

You all--Daddy, brother, sister, and you--are what's it all about.

Love you!

Happy Birthday!!!