The Boys At Ten Months

Last Friday my two sons, Joshua and Jacob, turned 10 months old, so I thought I'd devote an entry to them.

Joshua is currently doing his army crawling around the place, trying to find out what we haven't child-proofed yet and what trouble he can get into. It's amazing to see this guy move about, he's just so curious and relentless. He started pulling himself up to a standing position over a month ago and now he's using a little push-walker downstairs to take some hesitant steps on the carpet. Unfortunately, he still falls down quite a bit and gets a few bumps and bruises. As a parent, you hate to see that happen and wish you could spot him the entire time but it just can't be done (especially with two babies) and he needs to learn how to protect himself when he falls (or not fall at all). It's a little heart-breaking. But he's a tough kid. I think he might be walking by one year...

Recently Joshua's picked up a couple bad habits that we'll have to work on like not wanting to try new foods and not wanting to go to sleep when he's tired. I guess it's all part of the growing process...

Jacob is scooting about the place on his belly, but he hasn't been able to bring himself to standing yet. I noticed him trying to do it yesterday though (getting his knees under him as he pulls up seems to be a challenge). I think he's not far off. Jacob is very intense, he loves to use his hands to manipulate the toys and recently he's had a strong attraction to the books we have - for chewing, not for reading. I've had to fish bits of paper/cardboard out of his mouth numerous times in the last week. I've also noticed he has a kung fu grip, when we try to feed him sometimes he'll get it into his head that he wants the spoon. He'll calmly wait until the spoon approaches his mouth and then reach up with catlike speed and snatch the spoon with both hands. Trying to get the spoon out of his hands is an ordeal because you literally have to pry each finger off of the spoon and that kid is STRONG (we usually give him his own spoon to play with after that).

This morning, I stumbled out of bed, put on my robe and lurched/shuffled into the living room to find Jacob was playing with some toy keys on the living room floor, so I started mumbling "Keys... Keys... Keys...". The kid started making the 'K' sound like "K-k-k-k-". Continuing on with the game, I asked him where the "ball" was and when he looked in that direction, I rolled the ball to him and said "Ball. Ball.". I swear he said it this morning, though he probably didn't articulate the 'L' so it was more like "Bah... bah". Cool! I've heard them both say "Mama" and "Dada" before too.

Both kids like to play little games, like when we ask them where the clock is in a room they know where it is and look in that direction as if to say "yeah, there's the clock - what about it?". Very cute.

Unfortunately for Mommy and Daddy, the boys like to wake up early (5:30 AM sometimes) so Mommy has been trying to get to bed earlier while Daddy, as usual, has no common sense and stays up past midnight on the computer.