8 Months and a Nagging Feeling

Yesterday, Zach turned 8 Months Old. I couldn't blog because I was out and about town. Upon returning home, John and I watched The Social Network, which I had been wanting to see. All of this served as a good way to stall the 8 Months post, which is great, since I have dreaded saying what I am about to say.

I'm worried about Zach. I really am. He is doing nothing new this month. He still just scoots instead of actual crawling. He's gotten better at it. He's quicker, and I can tell he's stronger by the way he reaches and turns. He'll get almost up to where he is on one leg, with the other three appendages up in te air trying to get stuff that has caught his interest. He'll sit unsupported for a couple of minutes before he suddenly faceplants or flops backward, which means I have to worry about him getting hurt and so I always just lay him on his back to play unless I am sitting right there. We aren't making any consonant sounds when we babble. He still has no teeth.

So what is he doing? Well, he's doing everything a little better and more purposefully. When we are out of his sight, he looks for us. The same with toys, which tells me he understands object permanence. When playing with him on the floor, he'll pull you toward him and put his mouth on your face to give a kiss. He's taking solids better. He'll finally hold his own bottle, though we still cuddle with him at feedings. He's very very social and can command the attention of an entire room of people. Yesterday, we were at lunch when his smiles, giggles, squeals and coos had strangers in the restaurant coming up to our table to comment on his cuteness. He can do the whole pincer grasp thing now. And he wants to play. He loves clapping hands. One day, I was trying to teach him to clap his hands by taking his hands with mine and clapping them for him. Instead he learned how to clap my hands and so now he will grab my hands with his and clap them for me. He's still a chubster. He's engaging and happy. He watches everything like a hawk and you can just see him learning!

But the things he isn't doing yet just grabs my attention and induces worry. I keep reminding myself of his prematurity in an effort to quiet the nagging feeling. I'm sure this has a little to do with some of it, as does the fact that every baby is different and that babies don't develop uniformly. They may mature by leaps and bounds in the cognitive arena one month then turn and make strides in the motor skill area the next month. Evan did all of the motor stuff way early and by the time he was a year old, we already had him in a toddler bed because he had learned to escape his crib and I was worried the leap to the floor would hurt him. But then he talked really late, prompting us to hae him evaluated by a developmental interventionalist. Turns out all was fine and when he did finally speak, instead of monosyllable babble, it was in clear and complex sentences. I'm hoping Zach will be the same and will do everything in his own time.

So for now, the plan is to watch and see what happens this month. He goes for another well-child appointment next month, and if I am still so worried, I'll discuss it with the doc and get a referral to have him evaluated. In the meantime, I will stew over every dose of every medication they gave me while I was pregnant and I'll worry about every day that we could have kept him in there and didn't. And I will fret that this is all my fault and if I would have just lied about the contractions, all would be fine right now...