Ten Months!

This has been a very eventful month for our little monkey. He finally figured out how to crawl forward. So the frustration of immobility has abated, and in its place has arisen an implacable propensity for mischief. Between walking with the help of the furniture and crawling, he is always on the move. Within five minutes he will clean all the books out of the bookshelf in his room, empty the toy basket in his room, open and close his bedroom door several times while playing with the doorstop, come into the living room, attempt to empty the big bookshelves full of literary anthologies (he really likes the Norton Anthology of Short Stories in particular), try to eat all the DVDs, play with his musical table, empty the trash, turn the computer on and off, and empty his toy chest in the dining room/library. Many of these adventures require parental thwarting, which makes my day quite busy. I thought that mobility would foster a wee bit of independence. After all, with mobility comes choices--he can actually pick his activity. I was dead wrong. Cleaning and studying have become immensely difficult, as the boy will not be distracted by such obviously lame things such as toys. Confession: when it becomes necessary for me to do something without constantly pulling a little monkey off my legs (like cooking, cleaning, studying, enjoying a delicious cup of coffee), I put him in his bouncy exersaucer thingy and put on the Baby Einstein. No judging.






While this has kept me quite busy, the crazy fun has risen exponentially. We have such a happy little boy. He's not much of a laugher. His little giggle nearly brings me to tears it's so precious...but he's pretty selective sometimes about what he's going to laugh about. But when he does...my oh my, but does my heart melt.

His favorite things include food, exploring, and dogs. Yep--you heard me. I know that a good 99% of the world judges me for this, but I hate dogs. I really do. I truly abhor the noise, the smell, the licking, the energy, the neediness, the hairiness...all of it. So of course I end up with a son that freaks out with joy whenever he sees a dog. And of course, the bigger the better for B. Last night we went to the Irvine Spectrum (a big outdoor mall-ish place) and there was a guy there with a ginormous fluffy white dog. Ben went nuts. Great.

Little random things about our ten month old...When he's tired he sucks his thumb and plays with his hair. He makes a million funny little noises. He sleeps on his tummy with his butt straight up in the air. He has a voracious appetite, and when he eats he periodically takes long, passionate chugs of juice from his sippy cup. He LOVES books (yay!), and is getting really good at turning the pages. He is particularly fond of the touch and feel variety of literature. He also loves playing with slinkies and water bottles. While he is almost constantly moving, he still loves to snuggle, especially with his mama. Now that he's wearing two-piece pajamas (apparently finding one-piece pj's after nine months is about as easy as finding jeans that fit right), he sometimes takes his pants off. The downside: he's also figured out how to take his diaper off. I have yet to come into his room to find a wet and soiled sheet and a triumphant half naked baby, but I'm sure that's not too far off. He loves taking a bath and brushing his teeth. I know those won't last, so I'm trying to savor every moment.






We got that fun little video camera, but we don't have many videos because every time we pull the camera out, Ben stops whatever cute thing he's doing and makes a beeline (how do you spell that?) for the camera.

So that's our little guy. Plans for the one year extravaganza are slowly being made. Details to come. Our next big adventure is San Diego/Dana Point at the end of the month and his DEDICATION on May 30 at Rock Harbor at 6:00pm. Be there or be square.

Happy Ten Months, Sweet Boy!!!