Now nearly 8 months old, Felix is doing new things on a pretty much weekly basis. He's becoming a child with a sense of humour who is extremely active. Perhaps about normal for baby boys - who tend to be more active. He's very social although has proven to 'go off' some of the recurring people - like Uncle Hat (Tristan).
Motion
Felix has been able to roll from his back to front for some time. When on his front, he can raise his bum in the air or his head but not both at the same time. If he manages both, then crawling will come pretty quickly. He does try to crawl but it's inneffectual - imagine trying to demonstrate the front crawl by lying on your front, arching your back and waving your arms and legs about. Most of the movement he does is rolling longitudinally, he turn 90 degrees, changing heading but that is rare. Two rolls are his limit but as Kate discovered, that is enough to get him from the middle of our Kingsize bed and off the edge - with a bump.
In the last week, Felix has been getting very good at standing. I discovered his balance when lifting him out of the bath one night. He grapsed hold of the side and began supporting himself. With terrified guarding, he stood grinning for a good minute or two. Since then, he will hold onto your hands and stand without other support. He'll even bounce by bending his knees. Kate supported him this way in a few steps to the nearby sofa. Not proper steps as he was aided but better nonetheless. When Emma (the dog) lies a few feet away, to can see him wanting to move over but hasn't worked out how to lift his feet reliably.
His hand-eye coordination has got better and this week he has learnt how to bang two plastic hoops together to make a noise.
Food
Felix still breastfeeds but mostly during the day. The only time he needs feeding at night is to calm him down if he wakes up. He has three non-milk meals, each a mix of pureed food (he still has no teeth). In the morning he tends to have banana, baby rice (rice powder) and semi-skimmed cow's milk. At lunch it can be anything that Kate lays her hands on or pureed fruit from 'Ella's Kitchen' packet food (he loves those). In the evening, he will start with potato+apple (or similar) and then work onto full on puree sweet stuff.
On top of that we feed him bits of mushed up fruit, crisp-like things that are like Wotsits but with carrot and baby rice cakes. He also eats bread, up to a single slice but sometimes a large proportion of bread-and-butter goes everywhere. No-one is safe. The next step is a beaker.
Communication
Felix talks a lot. "Da da da da da" is pretty much the core speach. He doesn't really say the words of things but he does indicate what he wants with motions. Turning away from a spoon normally means that he's not ready, holding his arms out stiff means he wants picking up (you see that a lot when he's in his cot), crying generally means there's something wrong (it ceased to be random about a month ago). Laughing and grinning are the two things he does that we encourage. He likes it if you make him jump but you have to set it up right - he needs to expect to be made to jump. He likes it when you make silly noises or pull faces. And yesterday he demonstrated that he enjoys making other people laugh by waving his arms and saying "ba ba ba" to then stop, see Kate and I laughing and then joining in - and repeat.
Although his default setting is loud, he also has a tiny squeaky voice, which is his version of whispering. He can actually do a hushed whisper but it's quite rare.
Routine
This is a typical day/night.
01:00 - Wake for a bit, scream and go back to sleep. Sometimes needs mother's milk
06:30 - Wake for a feed. He doesn't always cry, sometimes just bangs his feet in the cot and talks to himself. I pick him up and hand him to Kate who feeds him while lying on her side.
07:30 - Nappy change, dressed and down for breakfast. Nappies are changed irregularly through the day.
09:00 - Morning nap. Up to 1 hour.
12:00 - Lunch
13:00ish - Some sort of nap but this one often doesn't happy.
15:30 - Afternoon nap. Up to 1 hour - sometimes more
19:00 - Dinner, we start cooking ours
19:30 - Songtime! We sit and sing songs before bed.
20:00 - Bathtime
20:20 - Storytime, feed and put down in his cot.