Ten Months

Tripp,

You turned 10 months on September 1st. So what have you been up to? The better question might be, what have you not been up to? You are SO full of energy and constantly entertain those around you. You're a very happy and very active baby. I think months 9 & 10 have been my favorite so far, but I'll probably say that with lots of ages.

You crawl really fast now and try to get into everything. Papa is anxious for you to walk, but so far you only take steps holding onto furniture or our hands. If I turn my back on you you're playing with outlets, eating the remote control, playing with my cell phone, pulling books off the books shelves, or un-potting our plants. You love that you can stand up and spend a lot of your day standing and holding onto furniture. Your favorite place to stand is at the front door. You like to look outside and watch the leaves/people/cars/dogs/flag. You know how to wave goodbye when people leave our house and you love having visitors.

You never sit still unless you're really tired after your morning bottle. During that time you'll rest your head on my shoulder sometimes and it's the sweetest thing in the world. This usually only lasts about 10 seconds, but every once in a while you'll give me a good few minutes of cuddles. You've gotten better about sitting still to read books and now we can usually get through one or two books before naptime or bedtime before you squirm away. You're favorites are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Little Penguin", "The Wheels on the Bus", and "Time for Bed".  You usually go to sleep at 6:45 or 7pm, after your bath, and sleep through the night until sometime between 5:15 and 6am. You're an early bird, but so are we, so that's ok. You also take a morning nap two hours after you wake up and then (usually) an afternoon nap.

You LOVE to eat. I hope you'll always be a foodie. You want to feed yourself everything, but I can hardly stand the mess so I try to still feed you really messy foods and let you give yourself less messy things. It's hard to say what you're favorite food is since you eat everything. The only food you don't like is hamburger - you spit it out twice when we tried it. Secretly this made me happy. :) You beg for food is somebody is eating and you're not. Also, whenever Papa or I go into the kitchen for any reason you quickly crawl in after us and whine/pull on our legs until we pick you up to show you what we're doing and/or give you food. It's a good thing our kitchen is small, because with you constantly hanging onto my legs, it's tough to move around.

You're very vocal and very friendly. Strangers don't bother you at all and in fact you seem to love the extra attention. You growl a lot, yell, babble, and laugh. You also know how to clap. We're working on "touchdown" and "high five". Somedays you get it and somedays you don't.  If we put you on the ground near another baby you always crawl towards them to say hello.

Summer Recap

This summer was one to remember. We didn't make it up north or to the beach, but we did a lot of other special things I'd like to remember.

Our summer started in mid-May when I became a SAHM and Joe started his internship. He worked hard all summer, loved his job, and can now say that he has an offer and will be starting full time in March! In some ways, I feel like I worked harder than I ever have this summer (taking care of a baby 24/7 is no joke), but in other ways I feel like I didn't work at all since I loved what I was doing. Spending every day just hanging out with my baby boy was so special.

Joe had the car at work this summer so Tripp and I were left to walk everywhere. And that's what we did! We averaged 4-5 miles a day, which made me feel better about not getting to go to the gym. We went to the park where Tripp had his first ride on a swing. We set up a blanket and watched kids playing on the playground. We walked to Kerrytown and the farmers's market a lot. We sometimes attended the storytime/playgroup at the downtown library, and we ran errands to the post office, bank, grocery store, etc. Getting out of the house at least once a day was crucial for this mama's sanity :)

In June, Joe's mom and Aunt came to visit us for a couple days and in August we went to MD to see them. Tripp had his first plane ride and did great both ways. He slept, ate grapes and Cheerios, played with toys, and spent lots of time flirting with the lady across the aisle from us. At Gigi's house he got to swim in the pool everyday which he loved. He also got to see Annapolis and meet our friends Marc and Cher. We also took a weekend trip to Grand Rapids in July. We stayed with our friends Matt and Kelly and visited the Frederik Meijer sculpture garden and had wonderful food at Marie Catrib's and Reserve. Tripp and I stayed one extra day so that we could visit with my high school friends and his future girlfriend Riley.

Tripp hit lots of milestones this summer. I should have been better about writing these down as they happened, but oh well. He began the summer by learning to sit up unassisted (at about 6.5 months). It wasn't long before he was scooting backwards and then "crawling" forwards. His crawl was unique when he started at about 7.5 months and looked more like a swimming motion. He "crawled" without using his legs, until about 9 months when he started to crawl for real. He loves pulling up on everything, can walk holding onto furniture or our hands and has figured out how to climb a few stairs. At about 8 months he finally started sleeping through the night and consistently taking two naps a day. Tripp's main form of communication is growling, but he can also say "mama". He knows how to give kisses (open mouth ones) and waves goodbye. It's been so much fun this summer watching him develop.

Back to School

Today is Joe's first day back to school for his final semester of law school. It's hard to believe how quickly law school has gone by. He might beg to differ since I'm sure his hours of studying felt incredibly long, but to me it's been the fastest 2.5 years I can remember. We've made great friends who we'll be sad to say goodbye to. Our personal lives have changed tremendously - new house, new baby, new jobs.

To celebrate back to school I made pumpkin spice pancakes this morning. Yum! I'm also hoping to get back to blogging and this time of year is as good a time as any to restart. I took an unintended summer break, but time is going so fast I want to document it so we can look back at this very special season of our lives. For example, how do we now have a ten month old!? Wasn't he born last week? :) Hopefully my next post will be a recap to document our new jobs and all the things that Tripp has been up to.