Logan's 8 Month Update

Logan’s 8 Month Update
I’ve noticed that my answer to the often asked question “How’s the baby?” is almost always the same – “fat & happy, what more can we ask for?”  It’s true … we are so ridiculously lucky.  There’s almost nothing that can really ruin his mood.  In the past month, we’ve hit a few bumps – his first case of the croup, his first ear infection (which we just can’t seem to shake), & a nasty bout of teething.  But, in general, he takes it all in stride and always comes back to his baseline – fat & happy.  
Here are a few highlights:

• The headline, of course, is that on his 8 month birthday, he started to crawl and then almost immediately started trying to pull up on everything.  Now, he’s into everything, and he knows no fear.  Unfortunately, that’s lead to a few more bonks & bruises, but he’s a tough little guy.  Very little stops him.

• When we say “fat”, we’re not kidding.  The little man is tipping the scales at 24 ½ pounds.  We get our works at home doing “baby bench press” & “baby bicep curls”.  Logan loves it, and it’s a good workout. He’s busting out of his 9 month clothes.  I’m heading to Carter’s this afternoon to stock up on 12 month summer stuff. 
• We’re adding in more “solid” foods.  We’re on to Stage 2 foods along with baby yogurt, and just this past Tuesday, we gave him his first crunchy fruit puff.  He wasn’t entirely sure what I was shoving into his mouth, but he caught on really quick and gummed it just like he should.  He’s not quite at the point that he’ll take them out of my hand or off his little tray, but I’m sure he’ll get that soon enough.  Now that he’s eating out of bowls more, he’s convinced that all bowls are meant for him just like he still thinks all bottles are his. 
• It looks like ear infections may be a problem.  When we took him in for the croup in February, we discovered that he had the very beginnings of an ear infection.  We did a 10 day round of amoxicillin.  He never seemed symptomatic so we didn’t think anything of it.  We went back a month later to check on it, and it hadn’t cleared up.  In fact, the other ear was a little infected, too.  So, we left the doctor’s office with an Rx for augmentin.  Little did we know what was in store for the little man.  The pediatrician and the pharmacist both recommended that we give him yogurt and probiotics to try to offset the fact that the antibiotic would kill off the good bacteria in his tummy, and we did start off giving him a container of yogurt a day (which he loves!).  But that wasn’t nearly enough to ward off what one doctor called “augmentitis” aka huge, massive, blow-out BMs multiple times a day.  That in and of itself is merely annoying to have to clean up (again, thank God for Oxyclean).  Strangely enough, Logan seems relatively unbothered by the dirty diapers.  However, the result of having to clean up that many very dirty diapers is a raging case of diaper rash – the kind that makes an otherwise happy baby scream bloody murder when you make the slightest move to take off a diaper because they know what’s coming.  Pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe what the little guy has gone through.  On the advice of our wonderful team of care providers at our daycare, we headed over to our local pharmacy (a real live apothecary, I know … almost unheard of in this day and age).  The sell a homemade concoction called Super Dooper Diaper Goop, and it’s a miracle in a white tub.   This wonderful goo combined with upping his yogurt intake to 2 containers a day plus adding in ½ a packet of probiotics to each container has given his little baboon butt a chance to heal.   We only have about a day left of the antibiotics and then we’re hoping the worst is behind us.
• Logan is talking so much!  “Da Da” is his favorite phrase right now.  We’re pretty sure it’s just his version of baby babble, but at least once I’m almost certain he looked right at Chris and said “Daddy” and it was witnessed by his Aunt Angie and her parents so I don’t think I was imagining things.
• Bath time is play time.  It seems to be his mission during each bath to see how much of the water he can kick and splash out of his tub and onto us.  It's adorable and annoying all at the same time.  :-)
• He’s gotten to the point that he has times when he definitely has a preference of which one of us is taking care of him.  More specifically, there are times when I’ll do, but he’d much rather have Chris.  I’m not sure that I’ve noticed it the other way around, but maybe I’m just watching too closely to see it.  Who knows?

What I really can’t believe is that we’re already tossing around ideas for his 1st birthday party.  Crazy, huh?  Oh, well.  Back to life with a fat & happy baby!