About the Kiddo: One post at a time: Eight Months Old

It's surreal to know that Nolan has reached the age of being out here with us for as long as he was living inside of me.

I still remember my pregnancy so well, and yet in so many ways it feels far away.

This month, like most months it feels like, was filled with a lot of stuff.

Nolan had the dreaded visit with a new Pediatric Cardiologist. Nolan's heart has two abnormalities that we will have to have possible recurring visits over. I'm praying relentlessly that it isn't something that affects him at all and that he does not become symptomatic to these issues.

First, he has a Bicuspid Aortic Valve. That just means his valve has two flaps controlling blood flow, instead of three. It seemed that leaking would be the main concern with this, but it's not all that uncommon and lots of people have this and live completely healthy, normal lives.

Second, he has an Aberrant Right Subclavian Artery. This means he has an artery running behind the oesophagus and a heart valve where it shouldn't. This could be the cause of his wheeze and chronic cough, and somehow, possibly even his reflux.

The doctor said these are minor issues and that his heart is working normally even with them present. As long as that is the case, they present no threat. You can read more about our Cardiologist appointment here.

Nolan's learned a lot lately.

He's mastered two colors. Here's a video:

He's learning to crawl:

This video is a weak representation of his awesome and completely efficient army crawl. He gets around the living room with it just fine. He still gets up on those hands and knees, but can't figure out how to coordinate everything together. With this army crawl thing he's got going on I've been seeing him get up in an impressive plank position pretty often. Poor guy just won't bend the knees and move them.

I haven't decided if I'm truly worried about his language development or not. Sometimes I think I am and other times I think I'm being insane. I'm overly worried about everything and Cory's underly worried about everything. We need a healthy balance of worry here.

In my opinion, points for me though. For not being one of those moms who annoyingly says my average child is a genius (and that's even with having a kid who could distinguish between two colors at 7 months old).

Anyway, Nolan's not that into babbling. He doesn't babble streams of consonants like he pretty should be by this age. Of course, you say that to just about any doctor about your 7/8 month old and they look at you like you're crazy and you can hear the, "He's only seven months old" with extra emphasis on all those italics. And you get the, "Children develop at different rates. Child development is a spectrum" and blah, blah, blah.

However, I'd love to just scream at them sometimes. I know it's easy to mistake nervous-paranoid-first-time-mom stuff with ignorance. This area though, I shaped my college and professional careers on. I know the whole spill about children developing at different rates and it being a spectrum, and it is true. However, it's also the top reason why some things aren't diagnosed early on.

I have no other concerns with Nolan. He's very social. He smiles and laughs, he has great eye contact, he looks when you point, he's attentive, physically he's right on tract, clearly his cognitive functioning gets a shout out. But, what if his ears have something going on? Or even his tongue? We had a lactation consultant tell us when we were having all those latch issues that she swore he was tongue tied. However, when we asked the Pediatrician, they said it wasn't.

I don't want to be the crazy, overly worried mom. But, I don't want to be the naive mom that lets it go unnoticed either. Balance.

I'm sure in just a short time down the road, it'll be comical that I had worries about language development (in Jesus name!), but until then... I'm not letting it go.

He does squeal delightfully (and undelightfully), he babbles vowel sounds frequently. And we have once or twice think we've heard the "t" and "m" consonants. But it wasn't verifiable. So that's the one area, he hasn't met or exceeded.

He's feeding himself. His pincer grasp is awesome for his age. He's starting to get more mature taste buds I think, and he's trying to go on a strike against vegetables.

Mom's tricky though and hides them in with small amounts of fruit and he gobbles them up unknowingly. He'll also drink the vegetable/fruit juices.

His favorites are still anything banana, sweet potato/mango, and puffs. His least favorites are corn and green beans. His favorite drink is Pedialyte.

His favorite toys are the stuff dog, a frog rattle, and anything that looks like a remote. He has some favorite blankets that he always has to have around and for naps/sleeping.

He's a little better at standing. Not on his own, exactly. But, using the chair or basket or something as an aid.

He's growing so fast, and yet at our Cardiologist appoint he was just 15.6 pounds and 25.25 inches long. Putting him in the 4% for weight and 1% for height.

I went through videos and pictures from our first few months recently though, and I look at that tiny little baby and just think of how big he looks now! My big boy (will be too soon anyway). I'm trying to savor as much as I can, because I know soon enough it'll all be in the folders I look through to rekindle fond memories.

Here he is, our sweet 8 month old: