Ten Months Old (by Matthew)

Less than two months until my first birthday...

In my tenth month, I really started showing my personality more--specifically, my silly side. (I guess maybe I'm like my dad and my grandpop--you have to stick with me for a while before you get to see My Inner Goofball.) One of my favorite ways to show off is by dancing. Just put on some music with a catchy beat and watch me start to bop. It doesn't matter where I am--my own kitchen or the grocery store are equally suited for a little groove session. I also unleashed my silly smile this month. Here are some pictures of it... (you can also get a sneak peek at the teeth I've been laboring over this month).

As you can see, this unique expression involves three primary characteristics: head thrown back, ear-to-ear grin, eyes squinted shut. Try it for yourself sometime soon! It's a real charmer.

My hair grew a lot this month, and it's getting long enough to curl up at the back. People say lots of nice things when they see me: one lady at church said I'm so cute that if she had a baby girl she would plan an arranged marriage. Folks also say that my eyes are incredibly blue, and they wonder aloud if they'll stay that way or fade when I get older. Most of all, people say that I look like my daddy. I don't know. What do you think?

In other ten-month news, I started doing a little bit of cruising, or walking along the edge of couches and other furniture. I continued to love eating big boy food and got a little bit better at picking things up from my tray and feeding myself. I also dropped one of my feedings, so Mommy and I are down to four rocking-chair sessions per day. I started signing and saying "all done" at the end of my meals, except that it usually comes out, "Ahhhhh buh!" I learned how to wave "bye-bye," and a couple of times I even said "Buh-buh" as I did it. I'm making a decent number of consonant sounds in my babbly moments, including, "ba," da," "ma," and "na".

This was also the month when I settled into a more predictable napping routine and started sleeping all the way through the night! Mommy's very happy about these developments. Currently I sleep at night from about 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. And I take two naps, maybe about an hour and-a-half each. (At least, that's what I do when my teeth aren't killing me.) As a special bonus, I recently started waking up happy! For the first nine months, I woke up from every sleep with tears and many expressions of misery. But now I often awaken cheerfully--sometimes I am so cheerful and so quiet that Mommy doesn't even realize I'm awake at first! It's only when she comes into my room to check on me, thinking "He's been in there for more than two hours!" that she finds me standing joyfully against the crib rail, smiling pleasantly.

On the not-so-happy side, I don't like going to the church nursery at all and have required my mom's constant presence for the past two Sundays. She's hoping it's just a stage. But if you want to know for sure, you'll have to tune in next month...

Here are a few more pictures... photo credit to Aunt Lena, who took them way back at the beginning of the month.