Month Ten

Dear Jack,

This past week you turned ten months old and it feels very strange to say that. I don’t know how it’s possible, but ten months seems to have flown by and yet feels like an eternity.

This month has been a really nice month because we seem to have fallen into a fairly predictable schedule. You take two naps each day, that last anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours. I didn’t realize how much you or I needed a schedule, but it has been a benefit to both of us.

This month you learned how to hold your sippy cup and drink from it. While bottles have never been your thing, you seem to have developed quite the infatuation with your sippy cup (especially the new one you just got that has a straw! Oh, how you love your straw!). Sometimes I have to hide your sippy cup from your sight or you get really upset that you can’t have it (especially when I am trying to feed you and all you want is your sippy).

This love of your sippy cup is actually a little bit of a relief to me, as I was starting to wonder how much longer the breast feeding will continue. As you get more teeth, you are more determined than ever to find things to bite. This has led to less-than-pleasant breast feeding sessions between you and me. While it makes me sad to think about the end of breast feeding (since it feels like such a special quiet time with my little guy), I also know that this is the normal progression of things and I feel hopeful that you won’t die of malnourishment now that you are willing to take a sippy cup. I think that ultimately I will try to hold out to your first birthday before we end the breast feeding, but I’m relieved to know that there are other options in case that doesn’t happen.

One new skill that you picked up this past month was the ability to get yourself into a sitting position from lying down. You wouldn’t have believed my surprise walking into your room one day after your nap to discover you SITTING UP in your crib. It was so startling, that I started to doubt whether I had laid you down in your crib for a nap. When it happened again a couple of days later, I knew that something new and strange was happening. And when I observed you doing it one day while playing on the floor, I realized that we had reached a new milestone in your physical development. Almost everyone that I’ve talked to has said that once their babies could get themselves from a lying down position to a sitting position, that crawling soon followed. I can tell by your movements that you are very close to this transition. Which means daddy and I need to get our tushies in gear and start the baby-proofing!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy