10 Months

My little man is 10 months old as of yesterday. He is such a mess. He is walking so well now and is into everything, I mean EVERYTHING. One of his favorite things to get into is Maggie's dog food. We have found him sitting by her bowl with food in his hands (once in his mouth, eww!) several times. What is the appeal here? Probably the fact that I tell him no every time he goes near it. But life is changing by the day as he is finding new and exciting things to explore. Like Mommy's bookcase. Which I let him pull all the books off of - I don't want to stifle every curiosity! He follows me around the house like my shadow. It is so adorable to be so adored. Sometimes he gets a certain object in his hand (like a bag of buns, my chapstick, my iPod, etc.) and walks around with it, and will NOT put it down. This could go on for a while and is so funny to watch. He is determined to hang on to it. I'm figuring out that learning to walk is dangerous! He has so many bumps and bruises, especially on his face. I need a tshirt for him that says "life's tough. get a helmet."I still can't believe he is walking. He's too little to walk! Where did my little infant go? I told Bruce we now have a TODDLER in the house! It's unbelievable.

He still crawls sometimes to get where he is going, maybe it's easier and faster. He has started crawling with his head down, almost like it will make him go faster. Aerodynamic. It is so funny. He bumps into things all the time because he's not watching where he's going. Once again, a helmet would be nice.

He is eating some table food, but since he has no teeth we stick mainly to baby food. He LOVES bread of all kinds; especially biscuits from Cracker Barrel. I gave him some pasta the other night with some red sauce and cheese and a little meat. He really liked it. I try and give him little bites of the things we eat and he will eat just about anything.

He is quite the jabber monkey lately, but no new words that I know of. He was saying "mama" at 5 months, but I haven't heard it in a while. Still no "dada." He constantly makes the sound "unk" with a hard k sound at the end. Who knows what that is supposed to be!?

He has been sleeping great lately. I love it! He sleeps for 8 hours, wakes up to eat then goes back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. He also takes 2 naps during the day, which range in how long they are. He still loves to take his naps in his swing.

Bruce will be deploying 11 Jan for 4 months to Bagram in Afghanistan. He has volunteered 5 times and was finally chosen. I can see how truly excited and thrilled he is, which makes me happy for him. He is a true patriot. Deploying means so much to him and I fully support his dreams. He has talked about deploying several times and we thought he was going to deploy this December, so I've had some time to get used to the idea. Four months is actually a really short deployment compared to others. However, I know it will be difficult to be apart for so long, so I have decided to go home to Alabama for a few months while he's away. I am excited about the opportunity to spend time with friends and family. Martha and Kyle are expecting John Asher around 10 Apr and hopefully we will be able to see the little man. Being in Utah has kept us from several family events; I am glad to be there for such a big one.

We are all going to Alabama for Christmas on 23 Dec - 4 Jan, and I am thankful we will get to spend the holidays together. I am so blessed to be with my family this Christmas. It will be Trey's first Christmas (yay!) so I know it will be super special. I can't wait!