Eight months.

Dear George George bo borge, banana fana fo forge,

That is one of the many songs in my repertoire to cheer you up when you are fussy. We also play the Lickety Split game that our friend Kelly taught me after showing how she does it with your friend Will. I bounce you on my hip while saying "Lickety lickety lickety lickety...split!" and then dip you backwards for the finale. It is almost guaranteed to cheer you up. Your smiles and laughs are infectious.

You need a little more cheering up these days. Gone are the days where you would contentedly play on your own. If Momma or Dadda are not in sight, you loudly let us know that this is unacceptable. Your Mammaw, who adores watching you while Momma goes to the gym to get her fitness on, says she can even tell you miss us while we are gone.

We try to rectify this by using FaceTime to chat with your daddy at work, and we call Mammaw and Grandpa too. The newest trick is how you interact with them, putting your arms up in the air when they ask, "How big is George?" Hilariously, you always follow it up with clapping, like you are just that proud of yourself.

The biggest milestone this month is crawling. CRAWLING. It is just another one of those things that hammers home that you are growing up. So far you creep or army crawl fairly slowly, but your enthusiasm tells me that you are going to figure out how to go faster very soon. Which means I am in big trouble, because as slow as you are right now, you still manage to find random junk to shove in your mouth. How do you manage that, Houdini? It also means the cats are in big trouble, because you still have them on your radar.

The sippy cup is also a big deal for you. Last month you started taking a sippy cup with a spout, but the ideal is for babies to use straws. Something about oral motor function yadda yadda yadda. Well, a few weeks ago we tried your straw sippy cup, and it was a success. Let me tell you why this is awesome for non-oral motor reasons. I can hand you your sippy cup in the car, and it keeps you happily quiet for a few minutes. For this reason, your sippy cup is worth more than gold to me.

Baby led solids are still going great. Most other mommas think we are either brave or crazy, but other than watching you carefully, giving you non-pureed foods has been utterly awesome. We eat together, as a family. You love shoveling food into your mouth, especially the sweet potato fries I make for you. That pincer grasp is getting better as well.

I spent my first night away from you this month when your daddy and I celebrated our anniversary (he has already been away several nights for business trips, so only one of us was antsy about this adventure). You spent the night at your Mammaw and Grandpa's house. She said she already knew you were a happy joy, but she was pleasantly surprised that you slept through the night. Which is what you do, ever since a little help from us when we did sleep training (GASP! Cue the judgment!) earlier this month. Knock on wood you keep on sleeping like this, especially since we finally got you napping regularly again for the first time since we took that trip to Boston and Maine three months ago.

Halloween was a few days ago, and this is one of my favorite holidays of the year - it is all about the joy, cuteness, and creativity of children (or, for one as young as you, their parents). We took a few photos of you in your dinosaur costume the day before, thank goodness, because the day of Halloween you were not having any of that. Luckily we had an orange onesie, plopped you on the porch at Mammaw and Grandpa's house in Celebration, and you happily played and ate for nearly three hours as trick or treaters steadily streamed into the area. Your cousin Cassandra handled most of the treating work, but between her cat mask and your innate cuteness, kids were happy to be at that house.

You make me happy, kiddo.

Love you,

Momma