10 Months

This has been such a fun month. Everyday Marshall's little personality emerges more and more.

He loves waving, mostly to his Uncle Joey for some reason. When he waves he moves his whole arm in a circle like he's washing a window. He can walk holding onto us with just one arm and can easily go between the couch and coffee table. He initiates peek-a-boo and chasing games. If you say "I'm gonna get you!" He'll laugh hysterically and crawl away. He loves dancing and does it to the radio, Jerad's guitar, or just if things are getting a little boring.

He is always on the move, crawling, climbing, and pulling up on things. We're trying to teach him how to get off the couch feet first because he prefers to just dive off. He loves to bark and growl. Not sure where either of these came from.

He says a few words (when he feels like it). He can say "hi," "bye," "mama," "dada," "mmmmm," and if you call him he will say "huh?" Maybe he'll be an early talker? I was extremely vocal. My parents always tell the story of me saying "welcome to the auspicious occasion of my second birthday." Apparently I was also pretentious. He makes this weird sound that seems to mean "kitty" although it sounds nothing like it.

His favorite things are wheels and balls. Any toy with wheels he will flip over to investigate and he can chase a volleyball around the house for a good 20 minutes.

He is quite the little ham. If he does something that makes us laugh, he will do it over and over again. He also gives gentle (open mouth) kisses if we ask "can I have a kiss?" Besides kissing us he likes to kiss mirrors, cats and dogs, toys, and the floor.

He's going through a little bit of separation anxiety and sometimes only wants to be held by Mommy or Daddy. This is both endearing and annoying. When new people come over or we are visiting someone he will usually sit quietly and observe for awhile before deciding to carry on as normal.


He's getting pretty tough. He falls and bangs a lot but rarely cries, and if he does he gets over it really fast. The new challenge is getting him to stay sitting or on his hands and knees in the bathtub. All of a sudden standing is much more fun. Bath time is still his favorite thing ever. Now that he's eating more frequently, he's bathing more frequently. When he was an infant we bathed him *maybe* once a week. He just didn't get dirty. Now his hands and tops of his feet are always dirty from crawling, and during dinner he manages to rub food all in his hair/face/eyes. So nightly baths it is! We still try to only use soap once a week and no lotions. If his skin is ever red or irritated we just use a little coconut oil and it clears right up.


During the last month Marshall went through a sleep regression where he would wake up every 1.5 hours. This also coincided with Jerad being out of town for 11 days. Awesome. Somehow I survived and he is back to sleeping like a champ. He also is finally sleeping in our bed again. I know most parents *want* the kids out of bed, but for us its sooo much more convenient if he'll just stay there after middle of the night nursing sessions. Lately he's been falling asleep in his bed between 6:45 and 7:15, nursing once in his bed before I go to bed around 10, then if he wakes up in the middle of the night he'll come in our bed and stay there.


We are still doing cloth diapers although now that he's eating solids its a whole new ball game. Since he was born we have only bought 2 small packages of diapers, one for his first few days as a newborn, and one when we went to San Diego when he was 7 weeks old (which we totally regretted using). I don't want to get all preachy about using cloth diapers, but honestly both Jerad and I are so happy that's what we're doing. It hasn't been inconvenient at all -- and I even work full time! Since we're also using cloth wipes, breastfeeding, and feeding him table food in lieu of baby food we don't actually have any monthly "baby expenses." This is great because then I don't feel guilty for the occasional Kahuna Kids splurge.


Now that he's so mobile and not breastfeeding constantly his growth has tapered off. He is wearing mostly 9 month clothes, or 12 month pants depending on the booty size. He is definitely not tall enough for 12 month stuff, but the cloth dipes give him a fluff butt that needs to be sized up. I'm actually glad he's slowed down because for awhile there he was going through sizes so fast that it seemed like I was having to pack away outgrown clothes every week.


I can't believe its only 2 months till his birthday. My goodness. I've been having a hard time deciding what to do. Its tricky because honestly the 1st birthday is really for the family. He won't remember it and isn't old enough to "get it." But, it's still a huge deal. We made it a year! Small family only party? Big party? Theme? Time? If our house was better set up for entertaining, I'd probably have gone for a small family shindig but since its not, we might as well go big. Right now the tentative plan is to have it at a park, invite friends and family, and maybe have a book theme. We've tried really hard to raise Marshall without too much stuff and it makes me twitch thinking of mountains of plastic. Whatever we decide to do, I see a lot of crafting in the near future!