What a hoot Aron has turned out to be. His Magoo smiles are lessening and little teeth are taking the place of gummy smiles. He is recognizing words very well and answers questions in his own little way. He responds with gibberish when we hand him something and speaks to inanimate objects with lots of expression.

This morning I had to drop off a check at the school office and one of the staff asked Aron if he were ready for school. He smiled politely and shook his head emphatically. More and more he responds appropriately with shakes and nods. He hates laying down to have his diaper changed and yesterday as I put him on the changing table I asked him if he would like his diaper changed and some church clothes. He quickly shook his head no. I got tickled and changed him anyway of course. Usually he will nod if I ask him if he is handsome.

He loves to crawl the length of the couch and climb over pillows and blankets along the way. This afternoon, Owen pulled all the throw pillows off the couch and laid them end to end on the floor in front of the couch. Then he showed Aron how to fall off the couch onto the pillows. Before I could protest to all this nonsense I was able to witness Aron diving off the couch head first onto the pillows and giggling as he waited for Owen to lift him back up for a second try.

Life with three little boys has it's challenges but I am more and more thrilled with the opportunity to be eye witness to the beginnings of the great things God has in mind for them.

Aron has teeth coming through. We're all very excited as this is the last first teeth we'll have in the house. All of Aron's firsts will most likely be our last firsts, which is just fun to say.

Anyway, I got some good smiles the other day and was able to zoom in and get some toothy shots.

You can see little traces of sweet potato around his mouth in the bottom picture. Must be that's what made him smile.

He's been eating everything he can get his hands on. Literally. I found a bug in his mouth the other day which about made me spill the graham crackers. Still makes me shudder. We have to watch him very closely.

He is handling these first teeth very well. A runny nose and a little extra irritability was our only indicator that they were about to pop through.

Aron is a mixture of great joy and great sorrow. He laughs and plays for all he's worth and cries and screams with all he has. When he is quiet, he is very, very quiet and when he is hungry he is completely focused on getting what he wants.

I am enjoying his personality a great deal, though that insistence he seems to have for being within two feet of me at all times is a bit annoying. He does fine for other people it seems and once he gets used to being upstairs while I'm down he can play by himself pretty well, but it takes him a while to content himself to be where I'm not. When we play though, he is wonderfully jovial and giggly. He's fun to tickle and make faces and noises to. I find him wonderfully squeezable and delightfully affectionate.

He is still doing his army low crawl, but once in a while finds it more effective to get up on his knees for a while. He still doesn't use his hands, just elbows and knees. His jabber is fun. He is very obviously trying to copy what we say and seems to have an ability to repeat the silly sounds we make. He waves and reaches with an accepting outstretched hand. He claps and beats his hands with gusto. When I reach for him he will grab my hands and place them right where he wants them so that I can lift him up.

Nine months is right around the corner and it's hard to believe what a big boy he is already. I'm enjoying getting to know little Aron and can't wait to see what the next few months reveal about him.

Aron has pulled himself up to his feet twice today. I don't have a picture of it but wanted to make a note here and just add a picture for the sake of sharing the cuteness. He is more and more independent and gets around so well. He's still not up on his knees crawling but the army crawl is pretty effective.

Today we visited Reubmommy again and she had some chocolate pudding in the fridge and wanted to share it with her great grandsons. I wasn't too excited about the idea of Aron partaking in chocolate pudding, but when she asked if she could feed it to him I couldn't refuse. Still in his car seat I strapped a bib on him and she started in. I was busy with Ivan, and Owen was on his own at the kitchen counter. There were lots of giggles coming from the little area where Aron and Reubmommy were sharing a pudding cup. It wasn't the repetitive chuckles from Aron I was hearing, it was the silvery sound of his 94 year old great-grandma shaking with giggles as the two of them managed to cover him and his car seat with chocolate pudding. Normally this type of mess would bother me, but when I saw the two of them pleasing each other so completely it was a joy to wipe away the sticky sweet mess from eye lashes to chubby knees.