10 months

What a fun little boy you are!  I have felt for a few months now like you are old enough to really be a little "playmate" of sorts.  For the first 6 months it was really hard to try to run any type of errands during the day because it was a little unpredictable how you'd behave, so for the most part I would try to go out around your naptime and hope you just slept in the carseat the whole short time we were out, then I'd try to rush home before you woke up since you're used to eating right when you wake up and I didn't want you to be hungry.  Now that you're a little older, things are so much easier!  I can plan to take you out of the house to do things between naps and never have to worry about how you'll do in public!  You're such a social little baby, you absolutely love sitting in the shopping cart or stroller or even your carseat while we're out doing things, as long as you can look around at everything and everyone.  We have a good daily schedule so usually we run errands right after you wake up from a nap and eat, so you're in a great mood when we go out.  You don't even mind going in and out of your carseat over and over if we have to go to several different stores.  And everywhere we go, I can hear people talking about how cute you are!  I have so much fun taking you everywhere with me and playing with you all day long.

Some new things about you at 10 months old:

• You are starting to eat some "finger" foods (although you're still pretty clumsy about pinching things between your fingers, so usually you just grab things with your fist and put them in your mouth that way).  Your fine motor skills have developed quickly since starting this.  The first non-mush thing I gave you was some Gerber's Little Munchies (baby cheetos, basically).  You had a hard time at first but quickly learned how to pick one up at a time and put it in your mouth.  At the beginning you would grab it with your whole fist and gum the part sticking out, but then you couldn't figure out how to get the nub inside your fist into your mouth so you'd end up dropping all the little nubs on the floor.  Then a few days later you decided the best tactic was to push with an open palm and just shove the whole thing inside your mouth at once, which led to some very funny full-cheek moments.  Now you do pretty good at "biting" (with no teeth) the Munchies although you still shove the small ones in whole.  Other little finger foods we've given you:  shredded cheese, meat flakes, some baby cheerio type things.
• Now that you've started trying to feed yourself a little bit, your fists and face get a lot messier (even though I never let you touch your purees, that would just be madness!)  so I've taken to holding you over the sink to wash your mouth and then I'll hold your hands under the tap to wash them.  You LOVE this excuse to touch water so you never fuss about it.
• You do a "dinosaur growl" all the time.  VERY adorable and your Aunt Roshini just about dies of the cuteness every time you do it.  She has been hoping for months that someday she could teach you a "t-rex" growl.
• You've finally started to say some "m" sounds, so even though 80% of the time you still say "da da da da" occasionally we'll be treated to "mumumum."  Melts my heart!
• You throw a lot of mini tantrums these days.  They only last about 10 seconds and I usually just stand there and wait til you're done then we go on with life, so hopefully that is helping to not encourage you to be more dramatic.  You just seem to have problems with sudden transitions, like if I'm holding you then put you down, or if I have to take away something you're playing with.
• You like to play with big toys.  We had noticed that for the last few weeks you've taken to playing with your carseat, or with the basket your toys come in (instead of the little toys themselves) so Daddy bought you a little tonka dump truck.  It is a big hit!  As soon as Daddy showed you how to push it back and forth your eyes lit up and you've been pushing it all around and dumping the blocks out of it.
• You taught yourself how to do peekaboo to us.  Ayisha discovered this first.  You'll lift a blanket over your eyes so you can't see us, then push it away and beam at us and wait for us to say "there you are!"  You'll do this over and over and think it is so funny.
• You move around in your crib a lot more these days.  You never moved at all when you were swaddled obviously, and then after we stopped swaddling you didn't move much at first.  Now that you're starting to move more in general you change positions a lot during the night too.  I never know when I check the babycam if you'll be on your side or your back.  You also have just started to roll onto your right side for the first time ever, which is weird to see.  During the course of the night with all your rolling from side to side you end up eventually scooting down a little too, so usually I put you to sleep with your head touching one side of the crib because I know in the morning your feet will be touching the other side instead. 
• You have full blown separation anxiety!  Some days it is worse than others, but you definitely prefer having me close by at all times.  Even in our own home if I put you on the floor to play, then turn my back to do something else you will start to wail.  Or if someone else tries to hold you sometimes you decide you only want Mommy and will cry and lean out toward me, and then as soon as I take you back you will giggle and snuggle in.  It's flattering but tiring :)
• You kind of wave to people now.  It's a full arm wave and you will do it whenever, not just in greeting, but it's still cute.  You're more likely to do it if someone does it to you first.
• You also shake your head.  Like the wave, you don't understand that it can also mean something, you just think it's a fun new trick.  It also usually ends up being more of a bobble then a focused shake.  Again, you are more likely to do it when prompted.
• You are very interested in our food and have very much enjoyed that we will usually feed you tiny bites of whatever we're having, as long as it's not spiced.
• You are slowly becoming MOBILE!!  Up until now you never showed much interest in moving around.  If a toy rolled out of reach you would stretch and try to get it, but if you couldn't stretch far enough you would just decide you didn't need it after all, or you would grunt until we pushed it closer to you.  All of a sudden though, you have decided it's okay to try to go after things.  It started with pulling yourself up a little bit in your bassinet.  I usually put you in there for a few minutes while I get dressed and one day I noticed you were holding onto the side rail with both hands and using your arm muscles to pull up a little bit.  So I hid just under the railing and you were laughing so hard trying to pull up just far enough to peek over at me - no legs involved.  Then all of a sudden this past week you have been experimenting with trying to pull yourself over your legs.  You never go over your toes into a crawling position yet, but I'm sure that will come soon.  Right now when you are sitting down you will kind of turn to one side and stretch and put your hands down on the ground, then rock back and forth gently until you slowwwly roll over your leg and onto your stomach.  It's a very slow, gentle process.  Then once you're on your stomach you start to fuss because you're stuck so we sit you back up, and then the whole process starts over again.  A lot of times you won't go as far as rolling onto your stomach, you'll just start to twist over and then sit up again, then you'll go to the other side.  This does eventually let you scoot around just a tiny bit over time, since when you sit back up you're usually just a little bit turned from where you started.  It has been fun to watch you cautiously experiment with this newfound ability, although it makes me sad that my little baby is soon to be a toddler!