Ten Months Old

Jared is ten months old! He is such a joy to have in our family. His little personality is too cute, and so is he. He has grown in leaps and bounds in the past two months.

He is crawling all over the place. He is sure an explorer!

He puts everything into his mouth. He is definitely our "taster." He is the first of the boys to try and eat dog food, and I've found a wide array of objects in his mouth. I've found everything from Legos (yikes!) to bits of leather, plastic and paper. He loves to eat paper. We have to be very careful of anything we leave in his reach. He is very good at getting into his brothers toys when they're playing on the floor. One day they and Mandie put him in a toy box to keep him away.

Now that he is mobile he has a few favorite rooms. If he sees the door to the laundry room open he makes a beeline for it. He knows he isn't allowed in there. The same goes for the pantry and the boys' bathroom. He is very capable of getting anywhere he wants to be - even down the step into the living room. (He hasn't mastered getting back up the step yet.) He does this funny thing when he crawls - he'll stop and push up on his toes. It looks like he's doing a yoga pose, or push ups. He has strong toes I guess!

He is babbling a lot. At last count he can make at least 10 different word sounds. He says Mama and Papa, and it sounds like he is trying to say other words like "good" and "Jared." He is a pretty happy guys, but definitely lets us know when he is not. Usually if he is not, it's a good indicator that it is nap time. He doesn't generally like to rocked to sleep any more. If he is tired and we lay him down in his crib with his binky and blanket he will roll over and go to sleep. He still isn't sleeping through the night most nights, but usually is up only once so I don't mind.

He has learned to clap and associates it with the word "good." If you tell him he's a "good boy." he will clap. Even if he is crawling across the room, he'll stop to clap. He is so funny. He will also clap if there is applause on television, or if you ask him to clap. He also learned to wave "Hi" and "bye-bye." Granny taught him when we went down to St. George for President's Day weekend. Sometimes he will say "bye-bye" (or something close) when he waves. It sure is cute.

He also has started to play the head shaking game. If you shake your head at him, he'll shake his back, and so on. At first he would only play with me, but has since branched out. He thinks it is funny.

He is still our pint sized foodie. I've given up on baby food entirely at this point. He will eat almost anything we do, so I let him. He still loves Gerber puffs. I'll put him in his high chair and dump some on the tray and he will go at them with both hands, grabbing fist fulls and stuff them in his mouth. It is so funny! He definitely knows what he likes. He has 6 teeth now so he is getting pretty good at chewing.
He still doesn't have much hair, and what he does have needs to be evened out but I don't have the heart to cut it. He and Jack have the same hair - fine and thin and very blonde. At his 9 month appointment he weighed 19.5 pounds and was 26(?) inches long. He is tall and thin, just like the rest of the boys. He had his first big cold this past month. He was pretty miserable for a few days and ended up with an ear infection too. One night he wouldn't go to sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time in his bed so we ended up sleeping with him in the recliner for most of the night. 
We took him on his first two hikes over President's Day. He did pretty well in the hiking backpack. We'll have to get him and his brothers out more this summer.

I can't believe he will be a year old in less than two months. Time goes by so quickly!