Half Calf is 8 months old now. From an activity standpoint, this has been a boring month. We have a hard time squeezing in things after work since Half Calf goes to bed at ~8:00 and the weekends have been busy with normal daily life stuff. The only real activity we did this month was to watch the ceremonial start of the Iditarod. As you probably are aware, the Iditarod dog sled race happens each year in Alaska. It is about 1000 miles (it varies a bit depending on the year and the route taken) and is usually completed in less than 10 days. Officially it starts in downtown Anchorage every year before they “restart” further north and then continue on to Nome on the Bering Sea. This leads us to the most Alaskan of all tailgating, Trailgate. Basically it is a tailgate party along the trail for the few hours it takes for all the dog sled teams to come by the location. It is technically Half Calf’s second because we were there last year taking pictures too but his view was a lot better this year we suspect.
From a learning standpoint, Half Calf has been very busy. Just before last month’s post, he became mobile. Now, he is crawling more (though still only with a two armed breaststroke maneuver). This has also given Half Calf the ability to follow the cat, which is fun for both of them it seems. The cat likes the attention but is not very good as escaping when he needs to since he is a old and slow. Half Calf is also able to sit up now. Currently he cannot easily transition from sitting to crawling and is unable to sit back up at all but stay tuned. Half Calf also pulls himself up the ramp and into the ball pit as well as uses tables at daycare to pull himself into a standing position. He also makes a LOT of noise. That includes learning new sounds, improving his raspberries and now added motorboat sounds. The biggest plus with all this movement and activity is that he now mostly sleeps through the night so we the parents are more able to get back to living on a normal schedule. I guess using all that extra energy is helping!
As for his ongoing allergy issues, this has actually been a fairly good month. With all the help at daycare with the smocks and detergent change we really have not had any major flare ups. He still has some itching and does make himself bleed from time to time but we are really happy with his overall condition. He still has some issues when around our friends and their dogs but we know to expect it and are trying to figure out the best approach to dealing with things. We hope the overall improvement is a sign he is starting to grow out of it, but probably just a sign that the changes we as a group have made are making a difference.
And now for the good stuff…
I could look at these pictures all day! What a cutie!