Ten Months

Dear Kellen,

Today you are ten months old. Your first birthday is not-so-slowly approaching, and every day I see more and more what a little boy you are becoming.

I don't know if I will keep up with these monthly letters after your first birthday - until now, I have been able to plop you on a mat and command you to "STAY." And you would. And I was able to write about you while gazing lovingly  in your floor-bound direction. These days however, I set you on your mat, command you to "STAY", then type three words before I hear you slapping the bathtub. How do you do that? How do you manage to move so fast, when you have only been moving a short time? We were convinced that you would never crawl "for reals", hands and knees crawl, because you have been army crawling so well. People talk about how skipping crawling is a bad thing, that you would have to be taught how to crawl on all fours because otherwise your brain wouldn't develop correctly. Once you started pulling yourself to a standing position and cruising, we figured you would just be one of those kids who skips the crawling step and goes straight to walking and never learns to read because he never learned to crawl. But ta-daa! You've proved us wrong, you are crawling all over on all fours in addition to army crawling and cruising. Congratulations! You're a real baby! You get to learn to read!

And yes, I said I heard you slapping the bathtub. This is because the bathroom is still your favorite room in the house. Ew.

You love practicing your stair climbing. With us holding your hands, you will go up and down stairs and curbs, lifting your right leg up as high as it will go, following with your left. Once heft your whole body up, you will promptly walk a tight circle and go down, only to turn around and do it again. And again. And again. I have found you try to walk up stairs even when there isn't a stair in front of you - you will just lift your right leg and try to place it somewhere that might allow you to hoist yourself up. Too cute.

Dancing has become a love of yours. Whenever you hear music, you will stop what you are doing and start doing the baby equivalent of dancing, which basically means you hip thrust with a huge smile on your face (I guess not just babies do this, I have seen grown men try to pull this off). You actually seem to have rhythm and can sometimes hip thrust to the beat. There are times, much like your non-stair stair climbing, where you will dance to a sound that is not music. The other day you started dancing to the sound of a fire truck's siren. Perhaps this was a nod to Grandpa Wally, but our friend Claire pointed out that you might just be into techno when you get older.

Kellen, I am exhausted. Even though you are a great sleeper (10-12 hours a night!) my sleep is interrupted by the sound of you grunting in your sleep. I am constantly chasing you around. My back is killing me from being bent over in order to hold your hands while you walk everywhere your little legs will carry you. You don't always nap and give me time to do things I need to do, you have started loudly protesting things you don't like, etc. etc. etc. I have never been so tired.

But I have never been so happy, either. You are such a joy, such a JOY, and even when I breathe a sigh of relief as I set you in your crib at night and head to the kitchen for a shot of tequila glass of warm milk, I find myself looking forward to seeing your puffy-sleepy face in the morning. Because you are the very best thing in my world.

Love,
Mama

Photo by Carol Hagstrom