Ten Months Old

Please forgive the fact that this post is over a week and a half late. You have grown so big in the last month! You're an entire pound heavier (probably due to all of these new foods you've been eating), though you're still the same height (which is our family's way of growing, after all).

You've had a very busy social calendar this month. From birthday parties to baseball games, apple picking to family vacations, you've certainly had a lot of fun! You've also been busy learning new things. Now that you're practically a grown-up, you absolutely refuse to eat purées and insist on feeding yourself. This is great, because you're getting so good at eating finger foods! Sometimes you're not so into nursing anymore. Every time I think you're going to wean yourself, though, you decide you love it again. You're also saying "mama," though I don't know if it's consistent enough to count it as your first word. You only say it for me, while you say "dada" for everything from Daddy to Chelsea to the door stopper. Man, you love that door stopper. We'll see!

You like stuffed animals, but you love books. Pretty much anything is a toy to you these days, especially if it's something off-limits, like Mommy's glasses. You love to play and turn almost anything into a game. You've figured out how to drop food for Chelsea, and I think you're trying to get her to chase you, too. You've become such a fast crawler!

You love to stand and can pull to stand on almost any surface, even walls. Once standing, you're able to just hold on with one hand to support yourself, which is great because you love dancing and waving one arm around. You've started to move your hands around quite a bit. Auntie Amanda calls it "mambling," which is manual babbling. You've been slacking with your ASL, but you do sign "milk" pretty frequently...except that sometimes it actually means "milk," sometimes it means "more," and sometimes it means "Mommy." I think it just means "I want this" or "I like this" when you do it! The important thing is that you're becoming a great communicator.

You're still really loving school. Your teacher, Ms. Jean, always tells me how much you love to explore your classroom and how much you love playing with your friends. Even though you're not so happy when I drop you off, you're always happy when I pick you up. And you're pretty happy at home, too! You're always smiling and laughing, and sometimes you do this little "AHH!" noise when you're just having so much fun that it bursts out of you. We're so lucky to have such a fun kid!