Letter to our 10.3 month old

Dear William,

This week on 10/18/2012, you turn 45 weeks or 10.3 months old.

You currently weigh 27 pounds 6.5 ounces-ish.  I say “ish” because you kept putting your foot on the ground when I weighed you this morning, and then would lift it up and grin at me.  Smartypants!  You have quite the sense of humor these days.   You are primarily in 18 month sized clothing, and we are starting to size you up to 24 months in some things, too.  Diaper stuffing strategy remains the same, although if you get more than one middle of the night nursing, you soak and leak out of your overnight diaper.

This past weekend I was struggling with a clogged duct and I was so grateful that lately you’ve been wanting to snuggle and linger while nursing.  I started taking lecithin (an herb) awhile back and haven’t had a clogged duct stick around for long since then, so this one being so stubborn was quite a surprise to me. In fact, for the first time in a good long while, I let you take a couple of naps on me in the hopes that letting you pacify nurse would help clear it up.  It finally, gradually broke free on Sunday.

I took you back to the pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon.  We had previously gone the first weekend it opened and felt rather conspicuous that we were just taking pictures and not making any purchases. This weekend, I had hoped to meet up with our mom group, but since you opted for a nap (as usual) during the meeting time, I decided to just go anyway even though I knew it was likely we would miss them.  You loved looking around at all the people (so many people!!) and rather than attempt a militant photo session, I just let you look around and acclimate yourself to your surroundings.  I’m a huge fan of natural, candid pictures (rather than posed) and I got some great ones by just letting you be yourself!  I had brought along your pumpkin outfit, that I bought just for this, and put you in it and then set you next to a bunch of pumpkins for the pictures.  One lady came around the corner with her two kids and was so focused on getting them posed that she totally missed that you were standing there and very nearly tripped over you!  It was hilarious!

Who knew a tractor going by could glean such a myriad of expressions!

This week you have added pointing to your repertoire of skills.  You’re not really pointing at things you want (yet), so much as you’re just kind of pointing where you’re looking.  Your love for bananas is becoming more and more of a demand than it is a request, you know where they are kept and will reach for them and SQUEAL when we hand you one.

You have added the words “This?” and “That?” to your vocabulary, along with the hilarious sound effect of hissing whenever you see a cat, or a picture of a cat (we can thank Snug for that).

Hissing: 

We purchased you some rubber bibs this past week and they have a collection area in the bottom.  It took you two seconds to figure out that’s where all the good stuff ends up. So now you spend a good portion of your meal time fishing stuff out from your bib and re-eating it.

Crawling continues to be your main mode of transportation these days.  We attended your Music Together class on Monday and afterward you kept trying to go out the door with all the grown ups. We were finally ready to go and we let you go with us under your own power. So there you went, crawling down the hall, and people were laughing as they passed you.   Yet you were pleased as could be because you were “walking” along with us.  Clearly, strollers are for babies!

Olympic crawler:

Things I’m not thrilled about this week?  Another middle of the nighter last Thursday night and nap avoidance two days last week, perhaps related to the flu shot?  Things seem to have settled down for you over the weekend.  Also, when you get bored you like to distract yourself with a motorboat sound or by grinding your teeth.

Things I want to remember about you this week:  The way you pull Froggy over your eyes when nursing and I feel you smiling… so I say, “Where’s William?  Where IS William?”  And you pull Froggy off, still smiling, still nursing and bust a gut laughing when I exclaim “THERE YOU ARE!!”  You are so clever and are apparently truly talented to be able to do that and not bite.  I say that because I shared with our neighbor lady how much I love this game and she said she can’t do that with her son because he bites.  Yikes!  You also moan and groan and growl when you’re going for another letdown, which isn’t very relaxing for me, so I started mimicking you… and that, of course, makes you laugh.   I love the way you hold tight to your crib rail and jump up and down in the morning, smiling hugely, to greet me.  The way you’ve started to push your little silver car around, all while it says “Honk Honk, pump it up, pump the jam, pump it up!”  How you’ve really embraced the Book Nook in your room, and will pull books off the shelves and look through them as if you’re really reading.  You love the interactive books and, in particular, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse book with the light switch that turns off and on.  How you will shut your bedroom door and, although you’re not tall enough yet, you will then reach up for the handle to open it again.  How going into the house from the garage has become a crazy dance because of your extended arm demonstrating your single minded focus on PUSHING THAT GARAGE DOOR BUTTON.

In the mornings on weekends, I take you for a stroller ride around our neighborhood. You enjoy going out of the neighborhood to the main street because you really love watching the wheels go round on the cars going by and get really upset if we turn around before then. So sometimes when we go out there, I turn your stroller sideways on the sidewalk and I sit down next to you and we just sit there, together, watching cars go by.

You grin at me, as you turn your head back and forth to watch the cars go this way and that way, the entire time. Moments like these, the simple ones, are the ones I’m forever trying to capture with my heart camera.

Love, Momma