10 Months Old

Nicholas is 10 months old.  Sometimes it's really hard to believe.  And yet, it's getting hard to remember our family before he joined it.

Eating:  He loves food.  Black beans seem to be his favorite, but there has been very little he's turned down.  Yogurt is the only thing I see him consistently rejecting.  Sometimes he loves baby food, other times he prefers table.  I guess it just depends on how hungry he is.  Milk varies from 8-16 ounces with the babysitter (3 bottles) with 2-3 nursing sessions with me.  He tolerates formula if it's warm enough.

Sleeping:  Nicholas has become a decent nighttime sleeper.  He goes down consistently between 7 and 7:30 and was waking at 4 to eat.  A week ago I started to wean the 4am feeding.  This morning was the first day without a "dream feed" and he lasted until 5.  He will still have occasional "cry outs" which are not enough to really wake him, but are just enough to wake us.  At least we can go back to sleep rather quickly and we are not having to even get out of bed.  He takes two naps a day.  A good day is 2 naps of 1.5 - 2 hours each.  An average day is one nap of 1.5 -2 hours in the morning and the car ride home in the afternoon.

Activities:  Nicholas loves bath time.  He likes to splash and dump water out of a small cup.  He crawls quickly now and pulls up on everything, cruising around furniture.  A few times he's been seen standing without support, but it generally lasts only a few seconds and often times we aren't sure he realizes he's doing it.   He loves to play the piano.  I recently got an upright so he'll pull up and reach up to play a few notes.  He also likes to play the toy piano and dance.  His favorite toy is his push car that helps him walk around.

Language:  Nicholas loves to "talk."  He's made approximations of mama, dada, dame (give me in Spanish), and mas (more in Spanish).  He will also sign "more".  All of these, except for an occasional "mama" are done by repeating an adult.

Other cute stuff:  He is learning to give kisses.  He recognizes the word "Beso" (Spanish for kiss) and will open his mouth a little and lean in as though to give you one.  It's pretty cute.

He loves to make all sorts of noises.  They accompany his play with cars often.  He loves to raise his hands above his hands.  Sometimes it's to show you something, sometimes it's to wave.

Outtakes: