Will - 10 Months

Happy 10 Months Will!

Let's be honest...most of picture time was spent with Will's back to me, so I replaced the sticker.

As I have said over the past few months, Will's personality is showing and he is becoming his own person. He is no longer an extension of me, he has some independence now. He is exploring this world every chance he gets. He continues to focus on new things and seems to soak it all up.

Food:
Just this past week we decided to cut back the amount he gets in each bottle and move him to eating 3 meals a day. This has worked on most days. We went to The Pfunky Griddle which is a pancake place that you can cook your own pancakes on the table. This was the first meal we have given Will a plate and let him take control. JT would make him a little pancake and I would pull it apart into small pieces for Will. JT couldn't make pancakes fast enough! Will absolutely loved it! NeeNee gave Will pieces of banana and he liked that too. I think he is ready to get to more textured finger foods, so we will get started on that. Maggie still sits around the high chair waiting for a little sample, and Will is often generous and drops something.

Toys:
He is obsessed with the ball pit balls. We didn't actually get the ball pit, just the balls that go in it. We put them in an empty Pampers box. (Maggie would have deflated the actual ball pit with her nails or teeth within the first 10 minutes, so we decided there was no point in getting that.) Sometimes he takes the balls out one by one and puts them in whatever place he has chosen to stack stuff. Other times he hands them to us or to Maggie. Sometime he just turns the entire box over and dumps them all out. He thinks it is hysterical when JT thows a ball up in the air and catches it. Non-toy items are still his favorites - remotes, phones, cords. We have dedicated a kitchen cabinet to him with my plastic bowls in it. He likes the pull them out and bang them around. I gave him a wooden spoon and he picked up on drumming pretty quickly.

Mobility:
Will is everywhere, and I mean everywhere! Nothing has become off limits. He is crawling all over the place! And he is pretty fast now. Climbing the stairs has become a daily activity. He walks when holding on to something - furniture, people, toys, etc. I don't think he will really get his balance too soon in the future, but he may be walking by next month...or running possibly.

Words:
Will babbles a lot, but still no actual words yet. He says "dadadada" a lot, but not really for what it means yet. "Gie" is still what he calls Maggie.

Maggie is still his best friend. They play pretty well together. We have noticed her growling a little, but then she licks him. She has never been aggressive with him and I don't think it is a mean growl, but I do have to watch her when she growls like that. We are still trying to teach Will that Maggie's bed is off limits and that is her "safe place". He doesn't understand yet of course, so he always crawls to her when she is sleeping and start pushing her nose or tries to pet her.

He gives "high-fives" and will repeatedly give them to me while I am giving him his bottle. He has also patted me on the back. Hope says she noticed this too. So sweet!

He is still a good errand buddy. He likes being in the shopping cart and does pretty well in the stroller. He is going to be a people watcher like me.

I am ready to start planning his 1st birthday party! Really?!?! Can we just freeze time at this point? I can not believe that he is almost a year old!