Dear Peanut,

How does the time fly so quickly? It feels like it was only several days ago that we brought you home from the hospital, and now here you are eight months old.

You are now flying around the house with your lightening speed crawling, and have now learned that you can go anywhere in the house. About once a day you wander out of the living room, down the hallway and to your bedroom where you climb up on the bookshelf and pull out all the magazines. So far you haven’t touched Daddy’s precious church books, thankfully.

You are also pulling yourself up on everything — the couch, my pant leg, the oven (you love to help me cook, even though the spinning kitchenaid sometimes scares you), and most recently the toilet! Almost every morning you will pull yourself up on it and bang on the lid while I’m getting ready. Good thing we’re all trained around here to put the lid down or else you might fall in. The other morning our neighbor came over and dropped off her little girl to be babysat, and when she came in she asked where you were. I mentioned you were in the bathroom playing and suddenly we heard the toilet flush! You’re constantly exploring and figuring things out, and are endless entertainment. Daddy calls you his live YouTube video.

Although you still have plenty of energy, this month you’ve been better at sitting still. You will sit on our laps while we read you stories, especially if it’s Goodnight Moon or Peter Rabbit, and help turn the pages. These quiet moments have also brought extra hugs and cuddles, which we are just soaking up. You’re also very good at communicating and listening — you come when we ask you, stop doing something if we tell you not to (usually), you tell us when you’re done eating and respond when we ask you if you want milk, and you even started giving kisses when we request them!

Eating is more fun for me now because you pretty much eat anything. We still give you some baby food, but we also give you little bits of our dinner which you seem to enjoy much more. And despite your lack of teeth (sorry, you got my family’s slow teeth gene), you are pretty good at gumming anything and swallowing it with minimal choking.

We are so excited for Christmas with you this year. We thought you might be too little to enjoy it, but so far you’ve unwrapped five presents under the tree and loved every second of it, so we think you’ll be in heaven on Christmas morning with wrapping paper everywhere.

Words can’t express how much we love having you in our family.

Love, Mommy