Brady Bear, you turned 10 months old on August 31 (Labor Day weekend)! I say this each month, but as time progresses each new month is my favorite phase with you.

Sometimes you get really excited when you’re crawling and you see one of us coming after you, which makes you crawl as fast as you can while letting out a loud high pitched giggle that you can’t control. You can’t help but laugh with you. You especially like it when Dad chases you on the floor.  After you learned how to waive last month, you can high-five on command. Not sure if you really understand it yet, but it’s a cute trick.  We can go from standing to sitting seamlessly now. You take a few steps while navigating your way around the room holding onto furniture.  You’re back into exploring your tongue nowadays…. lots of funny noises “lalalalala….blahblahblahblahblah…”  One of my favorite things you do is make a long exhale while I’m holding you on my hip and bouncing you so that it moves your voice like “ugh..ugh..ugh..ugh…” and then, you start to smile and give me a knowing glance – hah.  Occasionally you throw both arms up into the air and drop your head back or start talking or say “Dah!” as if you’re worshipping.

This month we started finger foods (homemade veggie muffins, sweet potato pieces, green beans, etc…) in combination with your regular pureed foods.  Nursing has been going well. Your routine is still the same (nurse 4x daily, eat solids 3-4x daily).  We sit you in your Bumbo at the dinner table and you eat “scraps” (sweet tater pieces or cheerios) so we can get through dinner without a fussy baby (most of the time).  Lately you’ve learned you can be picky. You seem to prefer fruit over veggies. Sometimes you don’t like all green veggies – so I throw in some sweet corn or potatoes or applesauce to entice you to eat it.  You also do not like to wear your bib for longer than a few minutes. You pull it off yourself and then play with it.  About half way through the month you seemed a little constipated (which means you didn’t poop several times in a day so we got worried) and overly tired. After a day and a half of no poop I fed you prunes an BAM! Now you eat prunes every couple of days just to keep it all workin’ well.

Sleeping has been ok this month. Some nights you cry a lot the first couple of hours (sometimes in your sleep – not consciously). Some nights you wake up in the middle of the night crying so hard and need to be soothed. One night you had a straight up night terror while hunched in a ball in the corner of your crib. It scared me so badly. Your eyes weren’t even open but you were writhing and screaming so hard. All I could do was hold you and try to soothe you. You slowly came out of it and were out like a light immediately after. It’s crazy how the brain works.  A few days nap time has been twice as long or twice as short as normal… just depends.  You like to throw your pacifiers outside your crib. A lot. I think you’re into dropping things on the wood floors, because you like exploring the sounds they make.  On a good day you sleep from 8 pm until 8 am. Thank. The. Lord.

You’re playing so well these days. Sometimes you can hold two toys in one hand (talent!) while also crawling around. You like wooden toys a lot. You chew on them, bang them together, drop them on the wood floor, throw them, etc… We especially love the Melissa & Doug brand of wooden toys.  You have a wooden shapes puzzle that you crawl around while holding at least one shape in each hand so that each time you move forward with your hand, you slap down the wooden shape on the floor. It’s similar to those squeak shoes that toddler wear.  Sometimes we coral you off in your nursery with the half/barn door shut (the previous owners sawed the door in half so the top swings open like in a church nursery or barn) to play by yourself. It’s fun to watch you explore. Whenever you get excited while playing sometimes you make this sweet huffing and puffing nasal noise with your mouth open.  We also started using baby gates to keep you in the living room, or in a section of the back office.  Sometimes you’re like a magnet to it and sit so close to it while you play or pull up on it and watch me while I work in the kitchen. But if the gate wasn’t up, you’d be on the other side of the room… funny how that works.

You seem a bit more skeptical of strangers these days. You cry when I hand you off to one of the ladies in the church nursery. It only lasts for a minute or two, then you are fine and play.

As a birthday present to me, Dad hung your swing from the super tall branch in the pecan tree in our back yard. I usually swing you at least once a day… it’s just so hot outside.  You seem to like it for about 30 minutes.

You seem to understand what “no” means. It’s as if you like to get caught doing something bad/wrong – you almost try to make eye contact and wait for the correction and then giggle when we correct you.  However, sometimes it goes the other way and you try to cry after we correct you and want to be held.  You like to crawl as quickly as you can out of site and make your way into the hall bathroom across from your room. You go for the same items each time: baby shampoo bottle, blue spray bottle under the sink, any loose toilet paper rolls, the night light plug in that sits under the sink.  I’ve learned to put most of these items out from your reach now. I’ve tried introducing the sign “more” while eating… but not sure you get it yet. Although, you’ve been raising both or one of your hands and opening and closing them quickly (grabby) and we think it means you like or want more of something.

Diaper changes are once again challenging, because you occasionally throw and all-out-tantrum kicking and screaming and writhing/arching your back until you get to roll over on your left side and sit up. Then the tantrum stops and you reach for the nearest “toy” or wipe ups box. The same goes for bath time lately.  It’s challenging, because you want to stand up or you tightening your entire body/legs into a plank and won’t let us sit you down in the bath. This is accompanied by grunts which lead into a fit, which is dangerous because the bathtub is slippery (even with a mat or a towel placed on the bottom).

This month we tried to stay home (not travel) as much as possible. I got to catch up on a lot of personal photography projects from this summer in between photo jobs, which was a huge weight off my shoulders. The last weekend of August (Labor Day wknd) we traveled to Katy to stay with family (RaRa) while we were in town for a friend’s wedding. You had fun playing at RaRa’s, of course. (More photos of that weekend to come later.) Your Aunt Leslie and cousin Alexis and grandma came over to have some photos taken and you liked playing with them.  It’s fun to see you and Alexis together since you’re only a few weeks apart. It’s funny how different your personalities are (such a boy and such a girl!) More photos to in another blog post…

You are growing and changing so much. You still have a big belly (very hard and round as if you’re always full, but you love to eat). Your hair is getting longer quickly and your  little curls in the back around your neck are growing, too. Be still my heart!