(ignore the computer cord – it was the only way he would lay down for his picture!)

Graeme, Your mom is such a slacker!

Stop it with the agin already, kid! You’re 10 months old already and I completely skipped your 9 month pictures and blog post altogether. So here goes a recap from the last two months…

December was such a fast month – Christmas has that effect on things – and I’d wished it hadn’t been. We had multiple family gatherings, at which you are an absolute thrill to be around! Seriously, everyone loved watching you play and playing with you. Your dad and I LOVE that everyone loved that! That’s a fairly new thing for you… Playing. By yourself, with dogs, with adults, with other children, even babies – you play so well! Right now your favorite thing to play is a game we haven’t really named but it’s essentially: dad holds you and runs around the house while I “chase” you. You giggle SO MUCH it’s hysterical! You have two favorite toys, both Christmas present: the VTech Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker and the Little Tikes Discover Sounds Sports Center. You love to play in my tupperware cabinet and at the dog door in the laundry room. I swear, one day very soon you’ll realize you too can fit through the dog door and you’ll be out on the deck before I know it! Good thing I only let you play in there while I’m doing laundry!

You’re so mobile and very very fast – we have to keep a constant eye on you. We don’t have a pack’n’play at the house (it stays at Mimi’s for you to nap there) but I know that you wouldn’t like being “jailed” in it anyway. You are weeks away from walking and that exciting but it’s not? You’re into everything! We’ve baby proofed the house pretty well, I think, so we just shut the doors to rooms you don’t need to go in and let you have free range of everywhere else. We may also still have our Christmas tree box in the house to block you into the living room, where it’s safest, if I have to run to the back of the house for something.

Your vocabulary has increased so much in just a few short weeks. You say “mama” and you know what you’re saying! Da-da, ba-ba, whoa-whoa, na-na, ga-ga, and sometimes a combination… You’re a chatter box and we love to hear you “talk”! You’ve also started belly laughing and fake laughing, which is entertaining because you mostly do it to humor us! You’re also very vocal with the dogs. If they bark, you “bark”, which is more of a yell than anything.

Firsts: SNOW. It snowed twice in January and we got you out in it both times. The first time you hated it – or you hated your snow suit… we couldn’t tell. The second time you tolerated it until we sat you in down and walked away to take pictures. Each time you only allowed us about 5 minutes and then you were done. COLD. I gave you your first cold just a weeks ago but I’m so proud that you haven’t gotten sick before now! Seeing your runny nose, hearing how difficult is was for you to breathe, and knowing you weren’t sleeping well, though, did make me sad for you. You were pretty pitiful the first couple of days but recovered fast!

When I wrote your 8 month blog post, we had just started teaching you the skill of independent sleep. You were doing really well until Christmas, when everyone’s schedule and routine got all messed up. We pretty much had to start back at square one afterward, which we anticipated, but then you got sick so we’re still working on that. Nothing we can’t handle though and you’re still doing well. The other night you slept 10 hours before waking up for your one and only night feed. We’ve loved the journey so much that I’ve started training with the same sleep consultant firm to be a consultant for them!

You will be the first baby ever to walk before you cut your first tooth. I’m sure of it. Kid, you have ZERO teeth! It really limits what we can feed you but I’m trying to expand your diet every day by making homemade baby food for you. Of course, you’re still nursing 5 times a day though so I’m not too worried about it. Every morning you have baby yogurt (full fat) which either a banana (your favorite thing ever!) or mashed apple, pear, and kale (which I make for you). For lunch you eat your homemade food and for dinner, you eat whatever we’re eating if it can be mashed up enough. We skipped the sippy cup all together… Although we don’t let you hold it by yourself, you do really well drinking water from a real cup!

About 2 weeks ago you starting pointing. You point at everything. Every.Thing. And you look to us to tell you what it is. People, animals, objects, lights –  oh lights. They’re your favorite! We never get tired of this because we know you’re filing this away in your ever expanding brain… you learn something new everyday and everyday we are amazed at how fast! It’s weird to wish of completely opposite things. It’s exciting to see you learn and grow but bittersweet because soon, you’ll be 11 months old. Then 1 year old and no longer a baby. OH my poor mommy heart! Can’t you stay little forever???

To see more of Graeme’s monthly blog posts, click HERE.