Ten Months

Jamesy-poo,
You are a ten month old little BOY now and we can’t believe it.  While I’m sure there have been other months in your life that have been this dramatic of an advancement I can’t think of any.  We are astonished at all that you have started doing in the past month (the past two weeks really!).

When we left you last month you were rolling and army crawling around and would get on your knees from your bottom.  Now you are 1) starting out regular crawling but switching back to army crawling within a few crawls because it’s faster, 2) pulling up on everything, and 3) trying to climb up the stairs! We can’t turn our backs on you for a minute!

On June 20th I was sitting in the floor playing with you and Charlotte and got a text on my phone.  You were sitting on your bottom playing with your activity table.  I looked at my text and when I looked back up you were STANDING at your activity table!  I couldn’t believe it!  The light was low and you were rocking back and forth so I couldn’t get a good picture but I did manage to get one.  It’s funny because Charlotte pulled up for the first time on the activity table too!

Two and a half weeks after pulling up for the first time you can pull up on the couch, chairs, people’s legs, your crib and basically anything else you decide to.  And on July 6th (your 10 month birthday) we were making dinner and you were exploring on the floor.  Charlotte had just called that she needed me and Daddy was stirring food on the stove when we heard you whimper.  He looked around and couldn’t see you and so went to find you and you were on the second step of the stairs working on getting to the third!

Your desire to climb has us the most scared.  Even when standing at your activity table or in your crib you will lift one leg to try and see if you can get it high enough to climb.  Charlotte wasn’t a climber so we are a little baffled as to how to contain you.  Once you get a little taller there won’t be any stopping you!

It’s been fun seeing you progress so much physically this month but it might have been one of the hardest since you were born.  For the past six weeks or so your top right tooth has been trying to come through and it has been very painful for you.  We’ve been giving you ibuprofen but it doesn’t do the trick like Orajel used to.  So you’ve been much fussier than usual during the day and have been waking up crying at least once every night over the past weeks.  Thankfully, you were able to stop crying quickly and get back to sleep without intervention but about two weeks ago you started having a really hard time getting to sleep.

The concurrence with you pulling up probably compounded matters but you started crying a lot more and being a lot less willing to be out of my sight or out of my arms.  Over the past week you have started pulling up almost constantly in your crib but still haven’t mastered getting down by yourself and your inability to get down or calm yourself down has us going up to help you multiple times during each sleeping period.  And over the past few nights you’ve been awake crying for up to two hours at a time in the middle of the night.  We’re all exhausted and were so thankful when your tooth cut on the 6th.  Sadly, you are still not feeling good and waking up crying often.  I’ve noticed that your top left gum is now swollen so it might just be a little while before you feel back to your old self.

One night when you had a particularly hard time going to sleep (we thought at the time, daily it’s worse now then it was then but it was bad for you then) I took you to the doctor to make sure you didn’t have an ear infection in addition to your teeth.  You didn’t but we got to weigh you and you weighed 17 lbs and 2 ounces so you are definitely growing!  You are still wearing 9-12 month outfits and some 12 month ones are way too big but you are getting much closer!

You would think that your eating would have fallen off with your teeth but it’s actually picked up.  Most days you will put as much food as I put in front of you and will only stop when I physically remove you from the table.  Your absolute favorite food is strawberries and you will cram at least four pieces in your mouth before mushing them and swallowing them.  Two or three whole strawberries, cut into pieces, are gone from your plate almost as soon as we can put them down!  You also love cherries and any type of cracker.  Tonight you loved all the baked potato that I gave you and you have started eating shredded cheese as well.  I fed you real oatmeal one day and you weren’t a huge fan but you love yogurt.

You still won’t take a bottle and at this point we’ve given up trying.  We’re now just trying to get you to take a sippy of some form.  Last night Papa finally got you drinking water from a straw so hopefully your straw sippy will allow me to not be here for a feeding and not have it result in you skipping a feeding like it has been up until now.  You are still eating four times a day (7:30, 11, 3:30, 7) and napping twice (9:30-11, 1-3:30).

You were Christened this month and we loved getting to declare as a family that we would raise you in a Christian home and model Christ to you.