Sam at 10 Months

Sam is going to be 10 months old on Friday and he has changed SO much since I last updated on him. I will do a head to toe review so that I can remember to include everything:)

His hair grows like crazy! I just gave him his 5th trim a couple weeks ago! He has a lot of wave and curl to his hair which is very different from Kate's which is stick straight.

He sprouted his first 2 teeth at 5 months old and then for 3 whole months nothing happened, then in the last 4 weeks he has gotten 5 more teeth! Thankfully he isn't bothered by teething or that would have been a very intense month. He currently has 4 on top and 3 on the bottom with the 4th bottom one on its way soon I think.

On the sleep front we have finally reached the golden "all night sleep." At 8 months he was still nursing once at 10:30pm and once around 4:30 or 5am. I realized that very early feeding was out of habit and not hunger and so we began working on cutting it out. He still wakes up and fusses for a bit around 5:30 or 6:30 but I just leave him be and he settles back until 7:45, which has become his very consistent wake up time. Yay! Next up we will work on eliminating the 10:30 "dream feed." I plan to do that by cutting it back to 10 and then 9:30 and then just leaving it out. If any of you moms have any suggestions, let me know!

In eating news, he is not a big fan of baby food. I am glad if I can get him to eat half a container. He wants table food and he loves to feed it to himself! He is a big meat fan and has gobbled chicken, ground beef with taco seasoning, and beef stew meat to name some:) He has also been enjoying pasta, grilled cheese, tofu chunks, and whole wheat toast (which he tried for the 1st time today and really liked.) Thankfully he does let me feed him lots of yogurt so I know he is getting some good fat and protein from that. All that being said, nursing is still giving him the brunt of his nutrition for now and I think that will remain the case until he is able to handle a wider variety of table food.

He has learned to wave, clap, do a variation on the sign for "more", play peek a boo, and raise his arms up over his head when I say, "So big!" David and I are regularly amazed at the amount of language he understands and at the way he is able to get his thoughts across to us. We have just not had that experience yet due to all of Kate's difficulties and it has been so much fun to interact with Sam! David and I were just saying this week that we can't wait until he starts talking because we can't quite figure out what his personality is going to be. Sam is very happy, but quick tempered, often a charmer, but also impassive at times. He keeps us laughing that's for sure!

Following in Kate's footsteps, he is a late crawler. He can lunge forward almost on to all fours to get a toy, but then sits back down. He also isn't sitting up from a laying position or pulling up to standing. His doctor thought it was probably due to his size and that we didn't need to worry yet because he is on track in every other area. He is cruising all over the place though! He has even taken a few unassisted steps! He regularly grabs a toy and then stands with no support while he examines it. He has figured out how to reach down and pick something up off the ground and is more interested in doing all of that then learning to crawl or having tummy time:) He is going to be like a wind up toy, he'll need me to stand him up but then he'll go off on his own!

Some of Sam's favorite things right now are: Daddy! He gets SO excited when David comes in the door each night and we think he is referring to David as "da da" now. Babbling LOUDLY! Using Kate's ride on car toy to cruise around with. It's his favorite because he can use the handle on the back to go in one direction, then he moves down to the handle bars to go back the other way. You can see the look of pride on his face as he gets all over the house! This toy also plays music and he'll push the button and then start bobbing up and down while holding on the handle bars. It's super cute!

Ok, I think that's enough:) Kate is going to be 3 in two weeks! There are lots of exciting things going on with her so I'll be posting soon!