8 months

My dear Bishop,

You are definitely growing up.  And as bittersweet as it may be to think you will never be a teeny tiny baby (not that you really were all that teeny tiny in the beginning!), I am loving this stage and the ones to come.

You can feed yourself puffs and cheerios and you love them!

You are drinking 4 7oz bottles a day.

You eat a fruit with oatmeal in the AM, a veggie at lunch, and both a fruit and veggie at dinner.  You love to eat.  There is not really anything you don't like, maybe peaches, but you still eat them, just not as enthusiastically.  Your favorites are peas and carrots.  Zuchinni you like as well.  And the macaroni and cheese "meal" that Gerber makes.

You just switched to size 4 Pampers. As a side note, your almost three year old brother is in size 5.  The next size up, since you can't count!

You wear mainly 12 mo clothes, but in Carter's you wear 18 month.  In Gymboree, you wear 6-12 months.  I had to get you a new winter hat. The infant ones Britton wore do not fit your high percentile head.  The hat I bought for you today at The Children's Place is size 24 mo-4T.  T as in Toddler.

Sleep.  Ahhhhh.  I must say that if I were in charge of the Nobel rpize, I'd consider giving it to  Dr. Richard Ferber.  The man is a genius. Britton is a champion sleeper and I credit Dr. Ferber's book with for a big portion of it.  But you, Mr. Bishop, well you sleep to the song of a different drummer.

You pretty much sleep through the night.  You wake up and make some noise, but I do not have to go into your room.  The problem we were having was that you were waking too early for the day.  5:30am usually, but also 6:00 and 6:30.  And no, we are not having that.  7am is a much more decent time to wake up.

Also, you were going to bed much earlier than we liked.  We tried to keep you up later and you'd just be a cranky crying mess. You wanted to go to bed at 6:30pm.  Considering we ate dinner at 6pm, this was just not a good logistical time.   But Dr. Ferber helped us out.  He told us how to shift your entire schedule, so you would have a later bedtime, and get up later in the morning.

And guess what, buddy!?!  It worked!

You now start with a bath about 7:10pm-ish, and wake up about 7am.  I can handle 7am.

You have your bottle no earlier than 7:30 then also eat your solids.  A nap at 9:30 is ideal, but sometimes you fight it like crazy and end up napping at 11am.  But you take your 1pm nap pretty consistently.  Once in a while it turns into 1:30pm, but I'll take it.  The only thing I don't like is if I have to wake you up to go pick up your brother from school.  I'm sorry, buddy, I guess it just comes with being the second child. :)

You no longer take a third quick evening nap.  But I'm okay with that. It gives us a bit more flexibility in our schedule.  In all, you are doing great sleep wise.  Anything is better than the infant stage and living life in 3 hour increments!

You love watching your big brother and you find him absolutely fascinating.  He wants to play with you so bad, Bishop.  :)

You've had some congestion lately, and you don't like medicine or your nose wiped.  You also have little tolerance for a wet or dirty diaper.  I hope this translates into a quick potty training, because your big brother has no problem with using diapers at his age.

You can do tummy time fabulous!  And you can sit on your own.  Once in a while, you'll tip over.  But more and more, you are catching yourself.  You are not crawling, but you kind of scoot, but not really. still

No teeth yet, but you are a champion drooler.  Bibs are your "must have" accessory.

I love you, Mr. Bishop Brown!