Pulling Up
J has been pulling up a lot more this week -- on to tables, the wagon, chairs, us...anything he can grab on to!  He's cute the way he pulls up to the wagon...he gets on his knees first, and then kind of scoots forward on his knees one leg at a time to get closer to it before standing up.  But on a less appealing note, he's also pulling up onto the stairs, so even though I thought it would be a bit longer before we would have to gate off the bottom, it looks like we'll be putting up that gate next weekend.  He made it up 2 stairs (with us standing there guard....just curious how far he would actually go on his first attempt!).

He also likes to hang his head down low when he's standing ... guess he's experimenting with balance and body weight distribution....but it's cute!

Cruising around, from the wagon to the side table with the ever-tempting Kleenex box & ceramic coaster!

Eating with a spoon

We've started giving J a toddler spoon at dinner time now, to begin to experiment with feeding himself.  He already uses his fingers to eat pieces of meats, crackers, and other finger-foods.  So yesterday, I put some baby food veggies on the spoon, handed it to him, and he just knew what to do and put it in his mouth, with surprising accuracy and agility for never having done it before...I was quite impressed!  Here's a video of him feeding himself with a spoon tonight: 

In other news, still giving kisses (smack noise) at all kinds of random times (like when we were watching an SNL skit with the "affectionate" kissy family).  Still teething with upper ones...who knows when they will start fully coming in, but you can definitely seem them pushing at the front of the gums.  Had fun in swim class on Saturday....and put his whole face/head under water; but luckily, it didn't even phase him, and there was no crying. 

Up next week -- he turns 9 months tomorrow!  Other than that, just the swim class...and probably all kinds of adventures with crawling, cruising, and walking.