8 Months

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted!!  We've had a lot of stuff going on, and all sorts of new things happening.  I can't believe my baby is 2/3 of a year old.

C now has THREE teeth, and is working on a fourth.  He has 2 on the bottom and one on the top left.  When his top one first broke through he figured out it made noise when he ground it together with his bottom teeth.  It drives me CRAZY!!!  I shudder just thinking about that sound, and it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

He is already weighs over 19 lbs, and is 27 3/4 inches tall.  I can't believe how big he's getting!!  While he's still rear facing, we have him in a convertible car seat already because he's just too big to carry around in the infant seat.  Speaking of cars, we are back to being a 2 car family!  We got a minivan, which is awesome!!!  I know a lot of people, especially those that are my age, see minivans as just the stereotypical soccer mom mobile, but I don't care, they're the greatest invention known to parents.  It's roomy, really easy to get kids into and out of, and comfortably seats seven people.  Not to mention it fits C's ginormous car seat with room for more, when more kids come along.  I absolutely love it!

C is an awesome baby.  He is so friendly, popular everywhere he goes, and just loves people, especially other kids.  He's so much fun, and keeps us smiling.  He's not crawling on all fours quite yet, but he's army crawling like a champ and is starting to pull himself up to stand.  He can stand totally on his own for a few seconds at a time, but he's still really wobbly.  He loves climbing over things, especially me!  He's so active, but luckily for me, he can entertain himself from time to time so I sometimes have time to cook dinner all on my own, but then I have to share it with him, lol.

On the allergy front, we're still very restricted.  At around 6 months old C started reacting to corn, so I cut it out of my diet along with the top 8 allergens that I was already avoiding.  I tried to challenge it a week or so ago, but it didn't work.  As of right now we (that is, C and myself, since I'm still breastfeeding) are avoiding dairy, soy, egg, wheat, peanut, tree nut, fish, shellfish, and corn.  It's hard, but totally worth having the awesome, easy, happy baby and not a grumper pants who has a constant tummyache.  I've seen such a huge improvement in C's overall health, weight gain, mood, amount of spitting up, and sleep that I know without a doubt I'm doing the right thing for him and for me.

We aren't going to do any more challenges until C is a year old so his digestive tract has time to mature and *hopefully* will recognize food as food and not something dangerous.  We saw the pediatric GI this week, and he ordered a blood test (we couldn't do it before this because he would've been too young for it to be accurate) to determine allergies.  I think the test is looking for antibodies against certain foods in his blood, and it will tell us what his body is trying to fight.  I'm not sure how accurate it will be at this age, but I'm hoping for some concrete answers so we have more to go on than the trial and error we're relying on now.  We should have results in one or two weeks.

On a happier note, we're going to Disneyland next week!  It'll be a great trip to break in the new van :-P
I'm excited, but it's going to be a challenge to find food.  I'm going to bring a cooler of things I can have so hopefully I won't be starving while we're there.  I'm going to be doing a lot of allergy-free baking over the next few days so I have something quick to eat while we're on our trip.  I know that C is still pretty young to be going to Disneyland, but I think we'll have a good time, and I can't wait to get a picture of him with Mickey!!!

Overall, I'm having the time of my life.  Being a mom is the most amazing job in the world and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I feel so lucky to have such an awesome baby who brings so much joy to my life.  Even though I feel 10 years older than I am, it's in a good way :-D