And so Adik is now 10 months old! (And change, if I were honest – thank goodness for backdated entries!).
[[image:2012_1029_rafe01.jpg:Cheeky toothsome slobbery grin!:center:0]]
* Mouse over the pictures for captions
Adik has abandoned the commando crawl and graduated to the traditional four-point crawl! And wow, he is pretty fast! When he wears footed ‘jamas, sometimes one foot will come out and he will get stuck, poor baby. But on the whole, he is quite quite mobile. He sometimes crawls in such a way that one of his feet is actually flat on the floor – like a reverse-lamed horse? Very amusing. He still loves to head towards the forbidden areas – cat food area, kitchen, downstairs bathroom (and catbox). We have our work cut out for us chasing after him! Vin cleared the playpen of toys (we had been using it as a toybox to store all toys) as we need a place to put him that is safe. Also we will need to investigate a gate for the kitchen and for the stairs. Adik is already starting to crawl upstairs by himself! Is this a gender difference? Yaya was at a slower pace developing these kinds of motor skills, but she was also more malleable and learned to respect her boundaries without the need for gates and the like! Another place that he loves to go is to play with Vin’s plants near the fireplace. My goodness!
Also he has been practising standing up. A lot. He can get to a standing position around most of the furniture (and his parents) and likes to wave his arms around and catch himself before he falls. He then practised the dismount, so to speak – to sit back down after standing up without falling over on his face. And he succeeded with that! Next he practised how to, after achieving the upright position, bend over and pick up a toy (or other objects) off the floor and then stand back up. He is also starting to inch left and right when he is standing up, while holding on to whatever it is that he is using to stay upright. Adik is quite resourceful and determined – when he wants to do something, he goes and does it. Even if it ends up with him on the floor crying, he’s back at it a minute later not caring that when he tried it the first time, it didn’t go so well.
Speech-wise: so far still only “Ma ma ma ma” (heeheheheeheeeeeee!!!!). He is doing a lot of babbling though and does in general get his meaning across. Also, as you can see in the picture above, his bottom two incisors have really come in and are showing very clearly. What is not showing clearly is that his upper two incisors have come out! They have cut through the gums but are not yet long enough that you can see them clearly. But they are there! So we have four teeth at the ten month mark! (Note: the blog clearly states that Yaya had four teeth when she was 17 months old!) Craziness! So far Adik is careful about not biting me when he nurses, so hopefully that continues. It was a hard few nights when those upper teeth were first coming in – he was up every hour (and so was I) so we were all exhausted and grumpy, and he went back to drooling like a spigot. But now that they have cut through the gums, he seems to be sleeping better and better able to control the drool. It’s all good!
Adik seems to be very social. When someone says “yay” or cheers, he claps his hand and yells too. Or when we praise him and say “good job, Adik”, he will clap his hands as well. He will wave incessantly when someone says Hi to him (even via Skype!). He loves to dance and will come out from whatever mischief he is up to if you play Old MacDonald on the piano. That is his favorite song right now! And he especially loves it when Yaya does the animal noises and dances along – he will happily bop along as well. He still loves to play ball (getting pretty good at catch), and balloons, and he loves to hit balls with other things (a future baseball player, perhaps?). He seems to love to palm the little balls that we have and throw them. He will chase after a ball and throw it and chase after it again and amuse himself for a while. He never plays quietly either – he’s always yelling at the ball after he throws it and while he chases after it.
Sleeping arrangements have been…rearranged. Vin put Yaya’s mattress from her room on the floor next to his side of the bed and made up her bed there next to us, and now Yaya sleeps on the floor and Adik spends at least half the night in the crib. After a few times, I do relent and let him sleep in between Vin and me on the bed. Especially during the waking up every hour bit. But he seems to like having his little bed in the crib with him (for now). Next step to remove his little bed and then have him sleep through the night (oh when oh when will that be???). Adik’s bedtime tends to be after Yaya’s, only because he doesn’t like the fanfare of storytime or lullabies. He is all business. He wants to go up, have it be quiet, nurse and fall asleep with no fuss. So after the bath, I take Adik back down where we hang out, read a book or two, play with his toys, and when we think it’s quiet upstairs I can take him up to bed and Vin can come downstairs. But I’m sure he will soon learn that bedtime can be fun too. 🙂
Food-wise: Adik still nurses a lot, and he still gets expressed breastmilk and 2+ ounces of formula before bedtime (he has no trouble with the bottle). He eats solids 4 times a day – his breakfast tends to be yogurt, and his dinner tends to be 2-course meat/savory and then fruit/dessert. Most of the new things that he tried this month are flavorings (herbs and spices). The following are the new things that Adik tried this month and his rating of them:
* peas (thumbs up!)
* butternutsquash + nutmeg (thumbs up)
* Onion with beef+rice+carrots (thumbs up)
* Broccoli (thumbs up)
* vanilla yogurt (thumbs up)
* onion+garlic with chicken+rice (thumbs up)
So far he has not complained about any of his food other than the speed with which the spoon gets to his mouth. Adik loves yogurt a lot – he doesn’t seem to mind what flavor it is, and if we can’t find baby yogurt, he enjoys plain yogurt mixed with fruit puree as well.
OK – moving on to how Adik spent his 10-month birthday: In the morning, Papa takes the kids down while Mama gets a little extra sleep to make up for all the getting up in the middle of the night that I have to do. During this time, Adik plays a lot and gets his breakfast yogurt:
[[image:2012_1029_rafe02.jpg:Crawling on the stage:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe03.jpg:Cheeky grin:center:0]]
His new thing is the squinting/scrunching up of his face while he smiles – maybe a product of the teeth coming in? We don’t know but we sure think it is awfully cute! When Adik gets tired, they come up to get Mama and Mama comes down and starts her workday while Adik nurses and naps. After that, Adik is free to roam again!
[[image:2012_1029_rafe04.jpg:Yaya took this photo!:center:0]]
Featuring more of Chris’s awesome knitwear!
[[image:2012_1029_rafe06.jpg:Papa took this one of the three of them!:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe05.jpg:Adik grins mischievously while Yaya is fascinated with the TV:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe07.jpg:Crawling behind the sofa:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe08.jpg:Kak Yaya, may I have the iPad?:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe09.jpg:Pleeeeease may I?:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe10.jpg:That’s OK I can play with all these other toys!:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe11.jpg:Must put head down..:center:0]]
After a lunch of applesauce, and more playtime, Adik is ready for his second nap of the day. Mama takes him (and the computer) upstairs where Adik can nap in peace while Mama continues to work, and Yaya and Papa can run around and play without having to tiptoe around! Yay! And then after Adik wakes up, he goes back downstairs and is ready to play some more while Mama finishes her workday upstairs.
[[image:2012_1029_rafe12.jpg:Geraming the doodle bear marker pens:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe13.jpg:Is it pianoforte or fortepiano? I just don’t recall:center:0]]
Adik has his afternoon snack.
[[image:2012_1029_rafe14.jpg:Hey, where’s my yogurt? I want more please:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe15.jpg:Cool shot from above:center:0]]
After Mama is done with work, Papa gets a break from the kids and Mama gets to spend time with them.
[[image:2012_1029_rafe16.jpg:Confidently sitting on the stage steps:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe17.jpg:Standing up at the coffee table!:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe18.jpg:Standing up at the red table!:center:0]]
Here are some of the many faces of Adik:
[[image:2012_1029_rafe20.jpg:Little grin:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe21.jpg:Look at my four teeth laugh!:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe23.jpg:Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe24.jpg:Ha! You got me that time!!!:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe25.jpg:A real laugh:center:0]]
[[image:2012_1029_rafe22.jpg:Practising my GQ pose:center:0]]
Then it is time for Adik’s dinner and post-dinner milk course. After he drinks his milk, Adik likes to loll on the sofa and laugh and get tickled.
[[image:2012_1029_rafe26.jpg:Relaxing on the sofa:center:0]]
And then it was bath and bedtime for little kids. Of course Adik came downstairs after everyone is bathed and dressed, while Vin and Yaya do their nightly routine. So Adik got a bit of extra playtime.
[[image:2012_1029_rafe27.jpg:Like my mohawk?:center:0]]
And then when it is quiet upstairs, Adik and I go up and go to bed too. Another fun day and another fun (albeit sleep-deprived) month. Happy 10-month birthday, baby boy! We love you! And to close, another close look at the birthday boy!
[[image:2012_1029_rafe19.jpg:Wide eyed innocence:center:0]]
