Graham at 8 months

Graham is at the most fun and most frustrating age yet. 

He's eight months old tomorrow and he is SO STINKIN' CUTE. His round chubby face is so kissable and makes me want to chomp on him all day. He loves to wrap his arms around my neck and suck on my neck like he's giving me kisses. He lights up when he sees me walk into the room and wriggles for joy when we start walking towards him to pick him up. He laughs uproariously at Dane and LOVES playing tag with him (being carried around by Daddy, usually). You can tell that he's always searching to figure out what's going on in his world and trying to understand the things we do. It's really fun to watch him and to see him figure things out and experiment with whatever he touches--like, "What does this do? I will shake it to see if it makes noise. Now I'll bang it on the table. It's so LOUD! Now I'll chew on it. This is awesome." 

Perfect angel baby, right?

BUT ALSO. He is SO DANG OPINIONATED about every little thing. Sometimes he won't drink his bottle unless you hold him at one specific angle, walking around the room, talking quietly to him. He won't drink his bottle if it's not exactly 81 degrees (not sure what temperature exactly, but if it's too cold then FORGET IT). When he is mad or frustrated, it is non-stop shrieking until we resolve his issues (usually, by picking him up and carrying him around all day). He wants sooooo so badly to be big and to be able to follow Dane around and grab the toys out of his reach and to not just be sitting there watching us walk by. We can't stay home while he's awake--WE HAVE TO go out or else he completely loses it from boredom, even with Dane and I entertaining him. He has been extremely demanding lately and I am begging him to learn how to crawl because at least then he won't be screaming all the time. He will be too busy ripping the books off our shelves and trying to stick his fingers in the electrical outlets.

Today he threw my Costco hot dog on the floor and squeezed a ton of baby food all over his clothes while shrieking like a banshee in the Costco eating area. Then tonight he spit up three times all over the carpet and right on the mouth of Tommy's water bottle. He was totally unashamed about all of this.

Oh yeah, and he's also ripped out about 55 handfuls of my newly growing-back-in hair after it all fell out after having him. I constantly have wispy hairs around my face and neck because he wraps his hands around them and pulls until every single one breaks.

Every day when Tommy gets home, we all breathe a huge sigh of relief and Graham starts wiggling like a centipede until his daddy comes and holds him. Seriously, he starts going crazy when Daddy walks in, and if he doesn't pick him up immediately he grunt-screams until he does. 

We all are being terrorized by this tiny tyrant and it's pretty much okay. He's basically the cutest thing ever. Everywhere we go people tell me he's the cutest.