At 8 1/2 months, Alessandro is really blossoming. He's crawling around very easily and today, he even climbed the 2 stairs in the picture below (sunken chapter room at the UC Berkeley DG house) all on his own.
Paul and I bought an industrial shelf with bucket sorters so that all the projects around the house staged for "tomorrow" or "this weekend" have someplace to wait because, already, Alessandro has found and dumped over at least 4 boxes of wood screws as well as having played with power screwdrivers, spackle knives, boxes with door knob parts and the like. I have also needed to strategically place heavier toys in front of the house plants as he has already found a love for digging in the dirt. I know I will have to find a better solution soon, but for now, this is easy. He is constantly pulling himself up on things and is just now starting to think about cruising. He will walk with BIG steps and high knees if you hold his hands. Nearly every meal, he pulls himself up onto the girls' little table to watch them eat.
He himself is eating thicker food with more texture as well as some table foods: halved blueberries, cottage cheese, avocado from the spoon, rice crackers (Mum Mum are fantastic!), banana chunks, Nonna's applesauce (not filtered) and just about any bread heels. He is really interested in eating what we eat and is becoming very attentive to my plate. Breakfast (7:30am) is the same, one jar of fruit with Nonna's applesauce in it. Lunch (after nap or about 11:30 or noon) is some table food and then 2 jars, one veggie and a fruit, and dinner (around 4:30pm, again after nap) is similar to lunch. His favorite foods are yogurt, applesauce, squashes and he loved the halved blueberries he had yesterday. He was a bit unsure of the new texture cottage cheese brought, but liked it, spending an unbelievable amount of time gumming it, ensuring it was mashed well enough (good boy!).
With Easter and a wedding coming up, and a sale at Janie and Jack, I bought the little man a little blazer. OMG! Just too cute. We pulled it out today and he wore it to our Founders' Day luncheon at the chapter house in Berkeley. One little dapper man amid a sea of sorority women. Later in life, he will be please with his early start!
