Dear Joseph,

It’s unbelievable to me how much you’ve grown and changed in such a short period of time.  How is that you’re already 10 months old?  You’ve gone from this:

Less than 2 hours old

To this:

Just shy of 10 months old

You’re alert and moving and growing in independence every day!

Movement

You crawl everywhere, but you’ve also started taking a few unassisted steps.  If someone is holding your hand(s), then it’s a guarantee that you’ll take off in whatever direction you please.  You’ve grown quite adept at using furniture, toys, and people to aide you in your travels.  You’ve figured out how to go up the stairs, too.  Next step is teaching you how to safely go down the stairs.

You’re incredibly fast.  In the time it takes me to empty your nappy into the toilet and return to the nursery (all of 10 seconds, door to door), you’ve zoomed out into the hallway and are off like a shot.

You’re fascinated with pretty much anything that is unsafe: cords, wall sockets, electronics, toilets (ew), stairs, and all sorts of other things.  It’s a challenge to keep up with you.  We’ve baby-proofed, but there are few things that can resist your tiny, incredibly strong fingers.  Thankfully the socket plugs seem to be one of the things you can’t pry loose, along with the oven latch.  Good to know that some of those baby-proof supplies that we invested in actually work.

Eating

You eat solid foods for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.

Eating some homemade pea soup

When you were very little (around 6 months) I would make purees of some of our food and feed it to you.  We’ve always fed you things off of our plates, but now that’s what we do exclusively – no pureeing and no “special” meals.  You feed yourself but sometimes we feed you, and you know what?  You’re fine.  You eat a huge variety of foods: onions, carrots, beetroot, garlic, chicken, beef, pineapple, feijoa, avos, hardboiled eggs (actually, eggs in any form), porridge… you love to eat!  You’ll gnaw on apple slices and feed yourself orange wedges.  Other than the time that your daddy attempted to feed you spicy chili (momma was at work), there hasn’t been a thing at which you’ve turned up your nose.  Last night, you ate roasted onions, carrots, and potatoes with olive oil and garlic.  The onion was your favorite, oddly enough.

You let us know that you’re done eating in a very blunt fashion: you throw food on the floor.  Needless to say, we’re working on breaking you of that habit!  You have also figured out how to hold up a sippy cup.  Like everything else, you mastered it in your own time and now you drink water quite well.  Right now, you’re drinking about 1 1/2 sippy cups full of water a day.

I’m still nursing you and plan to do so till you’re 1 year old.  I’m not opposed to going a bit longer than that, but we’ll see how you go.  You nurse 3 times a day right now – mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and in the evening.

Talking

You babble all the time.  You mimic us and you make noises like “da-da-da”, “mama”, “brrrrrrr”, “ba-ba-ba”, and you love to make “pfffbt” noises.  Today at the grocery you were singing “la-la-la” so loudly and sweetly that I couldn’t help but laugh.  You “sing” to us if we sing to you, and I love to hear your sweet, darling voice.  You recognize some words: daddy, cup, brekkie (breakfast), mama.  I think that you realize, recognize, and understand a lot more than we know!

We have been trying to keep your pacifier away from you during the day, because I notice that you say more when it’s out.  You still get it at times – when we’re out and about and you’re stuck in the pram, right before nap times, etc – but I want to make sure that we’re not giving it to you for no good reason.  I had a feeling that you could manage having it less, and so far, you’re doing just that.

Sleep

You sleep like a champ, most of the time.  You rise around 6am, take a morning nap around 9am for about 1 – 1 1/2 hours, then go down for a 2 hour nap around 2pm.  Come 7/7:30pm, you’re sleepy and ready for nighttime.

Shortly after waking from morning nap

I was concerned about weaning you off nursing and how this would affect your sleep.  I shouldn’t have been.  You no longer let me nurse you to sleep.  Instead, you nurse and then are up for maybe another 30 – 40 minutes, then go to bed.  We go into the nursery with the shade drawn and the lights off.  The light from the hallway or from around the edges of the window is just enough for me to read to you.

One of your favorite sleepytime books is “The Silliest Dream”, and I have to say that we really enjoy it, too.  I’ll read your some of that book, or maybe sing “Hush Little Baby” while holding you in the rocking chair.  Usually within 5 minutes, you’re ready to lie down in your cot.  I turn on the sleep sheep, give you a pacifier (with a spare where you can reach it) and shut the door.  Sometimes you cry.  I’ll come in and settle you – shushing, lying you back down, making sure that you have your pacifier – and then go back out.  It make take 1 or 2 times of settling, but generally speaking you go to sleep quickly.

You’re not a robot.  Sometimes no matter what I do, you’re not ready for a nap.  In those cases, I’ll make sure that there isn’t something wrong (like a dirty nappy or something else that makes you uncomfortable, like being too warm or too cool).  If you’re fine (fed, dry, and well) then I might give you some quiet time in your cot for a short while – keep the lights dim and the sleep sheep on, but not bothered if you don’t actually snooze.  It’s still good for you to rest, even if you’re awake.  I know that you feel much better if you can get in a morning nap, so I really try to make sure that you sleep for a tiny bit, even if only for 20 minutes.

Other Bits and Pieces

You’ve started to interact a bit more with other babies.  I go to an exercise group on Thursdays, and it’s fun to bring you along and watch you crawl across the grass to the other littlies.  You aren’t terribly interested in them just yet, though.  We do a rhyming session on Mondays at the library, and you love to watch and play with the other babies.  You hang out with your friends on Wednesdays when we swim, and there’s always at least one other day during the week where we’re meeting up with someone with a baby or children.

You also go into the creche (nursery) at church on Sundays and love to play with the toys and with your friends Zoe and Sophia.  They’re a little older than you, and we’ve noticed that whenever they do something, like wave at you, you are really good about doing it back.  A lot better, actually, than when your daddy or I try to get you to do it!

You still love to “read”.  You turn the pages and bang on their covers.  You love to be read to, and you love to “read” to us.

Another incredibly sweet thing that you’ve started doing is sharing your food with me or with your daddy.  I think that you’re modeling what you’ve seen us do – we hand you food, and then you eat it.  You’ve started handing us food or trying to put it into our mouths, and you laugh and giggle when we pretend that we’re going to eat it.  You do this routinely.

You love to clap your hands.  If I say, “pat a cake” you start clapping your hands.  If I say, “Yay, Joe!” you start clapping your hands.  If I say, “Good job!”, you clap your hands.  You wave “bye bye” and point your fingers at things now.  You are such a smiley baby, and I love it.

You do love your routine, I’ll say that.  In some ways, this is nice – I tend to know what to expect and when to expect it.  It does make things a bit tricky at times, though.  I’ll be out with friends and I know that you want to eat or that you’re getting sleepy.  Sometimes there’s no help for it and you have to wait a bit longer.  I think that’s OK.  Actually, I think that it’s good for you to start to understand, as much as your little 10 month old self is able, that the world does not always start and stop according to your schedule.  That might sound mean, but I do it because I love you – I do it because I think that it will help you start to learn patience.  Your daddy and I both hope and pray that we can teach you the right things, and learning how to be patient is a good and valuable trait.  Don’t worry – you’re only a baby and we remember that!  We don’t expect you to be patient for very long 🙂

And last but not least, in my opinion, you’ve started to recognize what you should and shouldn’t be doing.  You really enjoy getting into your bedroom closet.  How you manage to open that door, I’ll never know.  In the time it takes for me to wash my hands, you’ve opened it up and are digging around.  We’ve told you “no” about this on several occasions, and I’m pretty sure that you realize that you’re not supposed to be in there.  I’ve even got some videographic evidence to back up that theory…

I’m so happy that I get to be your momma and that I get to take care of you.  You are precious to us and we love you so much!