W is 10 Months Old!

W turned 10  months last Thursday!  We did his pictures over the weekend and as with each new month, I think these are the best photos yet.  It just gets much easier to capture his little personality as he gets older.

He finally started crawling, but it really isn't a traditional crawl -- more of an army crawl.  He can get up on his knees and rock and crawls the 'correct' way sometimes but usually he just finds it easiest to do the army crawl.  He is fast too!  You really can't turn your back on him for very long or he'll be clear across the room!

He is also standing more, but likes/needs the security of holding onto something.  Lately, his favorite thing is to hold onto the bathtub and watch the water fill up as I'm getting him ready for his bath.  He still LOVES bathtime and I tell him every night that we will spend lots of time in the water this summer -- between trips to the lake, beach trips, and afternoons at the pool I think he'll be a water baby for sure!

 I am still working on table food, but usually he just prefers his pureed baby food to all the work that goes into eating table food.  I think he only has about a 60% success rate at getting it into his mouth so we continue to work on it.  By far, his favorite thing is cheese -- can't really say that I blame him there!  As we work on introducing him to different foods, I am just hoping that he will end up with my love of food and sense of adventure for trying new foods.  (Sorry, Ben ... not intended as a dig on you but we all know about your palatte :)

One thing that has not been so easy for us is sleep.  I still consider him a "good" sleeper (contrary to what Ben would say) but from about mid-February until this past weekend he would wake up often and want to be held or for me to put him in the bed with us.  It got to the point where none of us were really getting a good night's sleep and as soon as I was getting up at 5:15 on weekdays to get in the shower W would wake up and scream.  SO.  Finally, I decided to do some 'crib training'.  I was prepared for a long weekend of being up every hour or so but to my surprise, I laid him down in his crib awake and left the room.  I watched him on the video monitor and he rolled around for about 15 minutes and finally just passed out!!!!!  I did have to go in twice to give him a paci but he went right back to sleep each time.  The next night was about the same and then I got smart - I put him down with FOUR pacis to increase our odds of at least one of them staying in the crib all night.  Seems to be working.

I realize this isn't exactly a new concept and according to my sister, its something I should have done months ago.  But it is wonderful -- he goes to sleep on his own and then when/if he wakes in the middle of the night he goes BACK to sleep on his own, in his bed.  As a result all three of us are so much more rested.  I can see why some mothers are such sticklers for a routine and I could easily become one of those as I'm sure any little change will throw off his sleep habits but I guess we'll figure it all out.

Now that he is 10 months I am starting to work on his birthday party planning.  I can't wait!