10 Months

Dear Cooper,

Today you are 10 months old! It's hard to believe that in 2 months time you will be 1! You are my cuddly baby and most of the time, thoroughly enjoy just being held whenever I can hold you. Of course now that you're pretty mobile, you love to be down to play and explore, but you have your moments of wanting to be held and still.

Here's what you're up to lately:

You pull up all the time, on anything possible. You haven't quite figured out how to pull up to stand at a wall or door, but you're getting close.

You love to "cruise" (aka walk around holding onto furniture), but you're still pretty slow with this. However, I'll find you standing at the end of the couch, barely holding on with one hand, while you lean down to hit Garrett on the head, so I think you could be more mobile than you're letting on right now.

You're almost exclusively eating table food at this point. You much prefer to feed yourself finger foods than to be fed baby food. I still keep jars on hand for when we go somewhere and there may not be food available to feed you, but I can't hardly get you to eat an entire jar of food because you would rather be feeding yourself. You still let me feed you yogurt every morning for breakfast, but that's it. You LOVE most meats and many veggies and fruits. However, I gave you a few bites of watermelon the other day and you literally threw up in your mouth and then swallowed it (sorry, I know that's gross. But it's true.) So we won't be trying watermelon again anytime soon.

You're starting to wean yourself off the bottle. I still offer it to you 4 times a day, but you only take the first and last bottles of the day well, the middle 2, you don't drink much. In the next few weeks, I'll probably transition those to be sippy cup drinks with a snack.

You like any toys that make noise, books, and balls. You hate our Tickle Me Elmo and get scared anytime we bring it out. You're also very afraid of Garrett's Spiderman punching bag. I'm not sure if it's because it is taller than Garrett and when he plays with it, it looks like it's hitting him since it stands itself back up. But we've limited Garrett's playing with it to his bedroom for now.

You love playing with doorstops as well as being given the opportunity to close any doors.

You rarely play in your Exersaucer or Jumperoo now. I use the Exersaucer when we go outside so you'll have something to play in, but other than that, you never sit in it anymore.

You've only recently realized you can roll over and crawl away from me when I'm changing your diaper or clothes. I've relished this time up until now where you've laid still while I've changed you, but now you know the power you have.

You still refuse to attempt to feed yourself a bottle or drink out of a sippy cup on your own.

You love to wave and constantly are waving at us, or strangers when we're out and about. You also love to shake your head yes and no still. I think you know that the no shake means no because you sometimes do it whenever I verbally tell you no (like when you're trying to play with an outlet, even though they're covered. or when you try to stand up in the bathtub.)

We love you so much and usually find you very funny.

Happy 10 months baby boy!