Dear William,
You have officially hit 10 months Little Man! Double Digits! That also means that you are just 2 short months away from one-year-old. Sniff. Sniff. I almost hesitate sometimes to call you my "baby" because you have gotten so big, you are a far cry from that little tiny baby we brought home 10 months ago.
You continue to grow and grow. As usual, height and weight are taken by me (and Daddy), so keep that in mind. You are about 20.5 lbs and 29.5 inches (According to the WHO charts, that means you are still hanging around 57%ile in weight and 75% in height... so close to what you were last month.) You are wearing mostly 18 month clothes at this point. We just started switching your sleepers to 18 months even. Usually, those are the things we switch out last because they need to fit really well and I don't like them to be too big whereas you can usually grow into other clothes. It was time though because your 12 month sleepers were getting a bit tight and weren't nearly long enough anymore. We have noticed that you continue to thin out. A combination of growing taller and being constantly on the move. You now have 5 teeth. You have three on bottom and two on top. That also means that you aren't like your sister in that you do not always get the two matching teeth within days of each other. You have had that fifth tooth (the one on the bottom) for a few weeks now and its partner hasn't shown up yet. We have noticed you chewing on your hands a lot though and you are getting more and more drool, so maybe one is coming. I must admit, I kind of miss you only having the two bottom teeth. That was so cute! I think I forgot to mention last month that we brush your teeth now. Well, we have always "brushed" your teeth. As a newborn, we used a cloth to clean your gums. Eventually, we switched to this little silicone brush thing and for just over the last month we have used a real toothbrush with baby toothpaste. You seem to actually enjoy it. Thank goodness! It is so much easier if you don't fight me on this. Let's hope it stays this way. This last week you had another sickness. Gotta love being a second child. While Kenzie never really got it, that doesn't mean she didn't start it... but maybe she didn't. You woke up Saturday night running a 101.8 fever. You had a rough night. The next day you took a 4 hour nap and went to bed around 5. You ran another high fever Sunday night but Monday you woke up under 100 degrees. Still not normal, but not high enough that we worried. You continued to be tired, clingy, and whiny for a lot of the week. We ended up taking you in to the doctor on Wednesday because you were starting to pull at your ears. That morning you had developed a rash that was slowly spreading all over your little body, but that wasn't too worrisome. It was the ear pulling that made me nervous. As it turned out, it was diagnosed as Roseola and a very severe sore throat (that wasn't strep, thank goodness). No ear infection. You were just pulling at your ears. The doctor said maybe you were going to start teething your molars sometime soon but that should still be a long way off. There really wasn't much of an explanation for the ear pulling.
You continue to be our eater. We did, however, find the first food that you absolutely did not seem to like. You are NOT a fan of cottage cheese. It was the first (and so far, only) food we have given you that you spit back out and after a couple tries, tried to turn your head and refused to open your mouth to eat. It was quite funny. Otherwise, you eat everything we give you. You actually can polish off almost as much food as Kenzie at this point. You eat three times a day (and usually have a snack at some point). For breakfast you usually have applesauce with oatmeal. Lunch is always finger foods still. You like crackers, bits of cheese, and chopped up veggies. Similar to Kenzie at this age. At dinner, we try to give you what we are eating (unless we are having something definitely not good for you.... like when I cheat and make fried chicken patties as sandwiches). We just cut everything down to finger food size and you can feed yourself for the most part. I have noticed that you seem to like for me to feed you off my fork too. Sometimes you will refuse to eat what we put down for you unless I feed it to you. Weirdo. At dinner you also always have fruit. Sometimes that means fresh or canned (only in juice) fruit, but sometimes you still enjoy fruit purees. Either way works but we like for you to have fruit and/or veggies at every meal. When we go out we always take a pouch of fruit puree and you have gotten to the point that you can polish off 4 ounces from a pouch in a matter of minutes. I don't know if you even breathe and you rarely let me take it out of your mouth until you are done. Also, when we go out if I get something that is okay for you to eat, you eat off my plate. We aren't at the kids meal stage yet, but you can polish off what seems like half my dinner if I let you usually. You also usually have cheerios at every meal as I usually put you in your seat before the rest of us sit down and the cheerios keep you busy. We have learned this month that you love goldfish, too. Your pincer grasp is getting really good! You still shovel food into your mouth sometimes, but I have noticed you using your fingers more and more to pick up food and sometimes you are even using only your pointer finger and thumb. So, that skill is definitely coming along. You also like to help me get the spoon to your mouth when I am feeding you. I'm not sure if it is just because you want to help or because I am just not fast enough for you a lot of the time. You voice your displeasure with me if I do not feed you fast enough. You yell, squawk, and bang on the table or your high chair tray to tell me to go faster. You also continue to nurse 4-5 times a day (that is just during the day because you still wake to nurse at night). You usually nurse after every nap and before bedtime. That means that if you take 2 naps a day, you nurse 4 times and if you nap 3 times, you nurse 5 times. This last week (with your Roseola and sore throat) you have started refusing all food and getting you to nurse has been torture. I figure it will all go back to normal as soon as you are back to feeling 100%.
As for sleeping... still not your thing. You take 2-3 naps a day. The number of naps depends on what time you wake up and how long you take for each nap. Typically, you wake up between 6:30 and 7:30. Your naps are usually 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. You usually remain awake 2.5 to 3 hours between naps. Your last nap sometimes ends a bit too early to keep you awake until a normal bedtime without issues and a bit too late to throw in an additional nap. Those days are hard. Otherwise, we are trying to move your bedtime back a bit and get you in bed by 7:30 (pushed from 7pm). We have also further separated nursing from bed. Now, I nurse you, then take you out to say goodnight to Kenzie and Daddy and then take you back to your room to read your book, say your prayers, and sing your songs. My goal is that when we finally wean you, that we just eliminate the nursing and instead say goodnight then do your night time routine. You are doing really well with that. Honestly, despite the fact that you get up a few times a night still at this point, you go to sleep really easily most nights. That is very different from a few months ago when you refused to go to bed... ever. You finally just figured that out and most of the time, we do not have any issues. The last week and a half or so, we have started working on Daddy putting you to bed. You were NOT into that the first day, but you are getting better. You love your Daddy, but you like your routine and you liked me putting you to bed. We want to make sure though that you learn to go to bed with other people too. What we have noticed about you is that you usually do NOT wake up happy. You wake up and immediately launch into crying. I don't know if you just want out of your bed or if you are just a bad waker-upper. Either way, you usually cannot be left in your bed for long once you wake up. Every now and then you wake up happy and I will find you standing in your crib waiting patiently for me to come get you. It's rare though. Also, like I mentioned... you still wake up a few times a night. We have finally started getting some 3 to 3.5 hour stretches out of you. I am hoping we get through this soon. I am usually so tired and it makes you very tired the following day. You actually fell asleep on the floor of the nursery at church one day this month after a particularly bad night. They told us that you just laid down and went to sleep. Okay, then. Silly boy. And that is why you should sleep at night! This last week has been a bit of a weird time. Friday night (while in a hotel room and in a pack n play) you slept from about 8-12:30, woke up to nurse and then slept from 1-6:15. That was NICE. You were similar for the next few days while you fought the cold except that when you woke up, you were generally up for a while either because your fever spiked and you felt terrible or because your fever broke and you wanted to get out of bed and play since you had not had the chance to do that in a while. You also took crazy long naps during that time period but once the fever broke and your sore throat came about you started waking every 45 minutes at night and taking 15 minute naps. That was rough. I was seriously hoping that we were starting to get to the sleep through the night point, but now I will just be happy when we go back to you sleeping for a few hours at a time instead of 45 minutes.
You are still quite the talker. You have definitely added "dog" and "ball" to your list of words and you most definitely have meaning behind them. You sometimes say them randomly, but you always tell me "Jack" or "dog" is around if you see him. You look right at him but haven't started to point continuously yet. You have done it a handful of times, but I expect that we will be seeing that become more frequent soon.
Also, you call balloons "ball" too. We have a bunch of balloons still hanging around from your sister's birthday party and you LOVE them. Whenever you see one, you say "ball". You have decided (similar to Kenzie at this age) that everyone will be called "dada". You don't say "mama" much right now (unless you are tired or hurt and crying as you put your little arms out to me), but often call me, Daddy, and Kenzie: "dada." This last weekend we went to the beach for a night and you must have been listening when I was telling you that all the seagulls were birds because about 30 minutes later as we were leaving the beach you looked right at the group of seagulls and said "bird". So cute!
Speaking of putting arms out, when you want to be picked up you put your arms up to us. We are working on getting you to say "up" when you want to be picked up. You usually just smile and reach as high as you possibly can when you want to be picked up right now. We also finally got you to do "So big!" which is one of my favorites. It is adorable. We are working now on teaching you do the same motion when you hear "touchdown!" so that you are ready for football season (which is quickly approaching). You are getting better. You and Kenzie will definitely be the hit at Froggers this year during Dolphins games. (If they can manage to get some touchdowns, that is.) You also love to walk if we hold your hands. You haven't tried to let go yet, but you will walk across a room with help balancing. You have periodically stood up again without holding onto anything, but only a few times.
You also love to dance. We call it the Will bobble. It is hilarious. You do this head bobble thing anytime you hear music. It doesn't matter if it is a real song, a toy, or just me singing about something we are doing (we make up a lot of random songs around here.) Although you weren't feeling well last weekend, you still couldn't help yourself when you heard music. You had to dance. I managed to get it on video. I love your dancing.
You LOVE Daddy. I mentioned it earlier, but you have gotten pretty attached to him lately. Yes, there are times that I still seem to take precedence, but in the last couple of weeks, you have started to seem quite fond of Daddy. You love to have him pick you up and you laugh like crazy if he kisses your neck. Speaking of loving people... I still think Kenzie is actually your favorite person. You guys could play together all the time (if she would allow it). She likes to play Follow the Leader with you and you think it is hilarious. You also sometimes have "crawling races". She usually wins, but you crawl right along with her laughing the entire time. You basically just like to do whatever she does. She loves to lay on top of you in a big bear hug. You would think that would upset you... but it doesn't. Again, you just smile and laugh like it is the most hilarious thing you have ever done. Not only do you love Kenzie, but you love her stuff. If you ever disappear as we are going down the hall (because I refuse to carry you all the time when you can get down the hall yourself), we can usually find you in her room, taking all of her stuff of her shelves or out of her toy bins.
I have noticed this month that you are getting more into books. You will sit and actually look at some of the pictures sometimes instead of just putting the books in your mouth. You are getting pretty good at turning the pages of your board books and every night when we read Goodnight Moon, you help me turn the pages as we read. I wonder if you will love books as much as Kenzie does? When you aren't reading, messing with Kenzie's stuff, or trying to do whatever she does, we can often find you being a daredevil. Boys are so much different than girls. At least my girl and boy are very different. For instance, taking your monthly picture has become... interesting. It usually involves 2 people or a tripod so that I can stay really close by for the inevitable moment when you attempt to launch yourself off the chair (and laugh as you do it). You climb on things, pull up on things that aren't the best to use to pull up on, get yourself stuck in weird places and generally seem to lack any sense of fear. Trust me though, when you manage to hurt yourself... you turn into a big baby. You cry like you had no idea what you did was going to hurt you (despite the fact that you have done it 3 times before and always end up in tears).
The separation anxiety has definitely dissipated. Thank goodness! It was terrible and neither of us seemed to enjoy it. One day... it just ended. Now, you will usually go to whomever and can play by yourself for quite some time if I'm making dinner or something. You do still love to be worn though. We actually tried the back carry for the first time this month. You definitely loved that. It was easier for me too so I think we will be using it more often as you continue to grow and get heavier. I actually got you up there on my own and eventually figured out how to get you down on my own, so we are set. Now I know if you are having an off day, that I can strap you on and go about my business. I would wear you sometimes while I vacuumed or something, but it was hard with you in front because you always wanted to grab the vacuum or mop as it came close. This works so much better for us.
You are definitely our beach bum baby. We have taken you a couple more times and you LOVE it every time. You stopped eating sand (thank goodness!) but still like to play in it. You like to either be held in the water or sit on the water's edge and let it hit you as the waves come in. We went to your first West Coast beach this past weekend. You loved playing in the sand (once you calmed down after I put you on the ground).
You are getting so very big. You are almost a year old now! I can't believe it! I love you little man! Whatever you do... just keep dancing.
XOXO,
Mommy
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