Santiago: 8 months!

This might have been the best month so far, although I can't help but feel like he's not a baby anymore.  I remember holding a tiny newborn in my arms, and he was no wider than my body when he was all curled up.  Now he's sprawling out in both directions!  He might still be small/underweight, but he's getting long.  

He is great at going from really serious to really happy, and back to really serious in a remarkably short period of time (like 1.5 seconds.)

A few developmental milestones (or lack thereof):

-I can finally say that he comfortably rolls in both directions 

-He'll sit up for a while by himself, but it usually ends in him toppling over and crying

-Thanks to a little cry-it-out, he takes 3 naps a day.  Hallelujah.

-He's getting the hang of eating.  Still not a huge fan of vegetable baby food, but we just give him little pieces of whatever is around - beans, ground beef, avocado, bread, peanut butter, banana, yogurt

-No crawling, but he pushes himself around with his hands.  And usually ends up backing himself underneath the tv stand and getting stuck.

-Yoga is apparently intuitive.  He's starting to do the downward dog pretty well. 

-For being so serious, in the last month he's started laughing hysterically.  It usually happens when it's getting close to (or past) bedtime.  And usually he's laughing at things that aren't that funny.  But we love listening to it.  (It probably doesn't hurt that his very funny dad came home from Afghanistan to entertain him.)

Serious

 Happy

 Speaking of Hyrum being home-- it's awesome!  He loves playing with Tiago, so I get more free time.  He changes diapers and pushes the stroller.  I love two-parent parenting.

And speaking of parenting, we watched this video last night in honor of Mothers Day.  What a great message.  It makes motherhood seem exhausting (accurate) but also wonderful.  It celebrates the amazing role that women can play in the lives of children.  

Who wouldn't want to wake up and see these crazy faces every day??

Based on the two pictures on the bottom/right, I think he's ready for Halloween, or a Harry Potter for Babies casting.

Moving on.  We keep having to go in to the doctor for check-ups because Santiago is not gaining much weight.  Two weeks ago he weighed 15.6 lbs, which is below the 5th percentile.  I think he's gained almost a pound since then, so hopefully he'll start getting bigger.  He's almost 27" long, which is about average.

And forget what I said/hoped for about him sleeping through the night.  He did a few times, and then started waking up again.  Since he's not gaining weight, I figured it can't hurt for him to feed him once during the night.  But the sleep training effort was definitely worth it for the nap schedule he's on now.  

We just got back from London; Tiago has now visited five countries. Here's one last picture of Tiago with his new souvenir, until I manage to sort through the other hundreds of pictures.