10 Months

Dear Zachary,

I cannot believe that you are already 10 months old.  You are quickly reaching that one-year mark and it is going by entirely too quickly in my opinion.  Every day I watch you grow more and more independent and I am so proud of you.  It is so amazing to see you develop into a little person.  It is absolutely the best gift I’ve ever been given.

I thought that you were moving fast before, but you have become even more mobile over the last few weeks.  Daddy and I can barely keep up with you anymore.  Besides the crawling at the speed of light, you are now cruising around the room with your hands barely touching the furniture.  Sometimes you even let go completely and stand for a few seconds before landing on your butt.  As soon as you figure out that balance thing, I’m sure you will be walking on your own.

Besides the crawling and cruising, you have also started climbing on everything.  We have caught you climbing up on your rocking chair, climbing on and through the bottom shelf of the end table, along with using various toys as steps to reach objects that you aren’t supposed to be able to reach.  Then, last weekend at the park, you showed me that you already know how to climb stairs.  I guess you just applied your furniture crawling techniques to the steps.  I put you on the steps leading up to the slide and you started climbing right up with no hesitation whatsoever.  We have never turned you loose on the stairs at home and to my knowledge that was the first chance you ever had to try them out.

When you actually stop moving long enough, you like to use those four teeth of yours to bite everything in sight.  Soon you should be gnawing through almost anything because you have another four teeth quickly on the way.  You stuff absolutely everything in your mouth, including strings, fuzz, and various other things you might find on the floor.  You are eating mostly table foods now, but every once in a while you refuse to eat so I feed you a jar of mushy baby food and you scarf down every bite.  I guess it must taste better than the dog and cat food that you keep trying to sample when you get loose in the kitchen.

A few weeks ago we started giving you a little bit of whole milk and gradually increasing the amount.  You are now completely switched over to milk during the day.  I’m still giving you some formula when you wake up in the morning and just before you go to bed at night, but soon we will be cutting those out as well.  Before long, my baby will be gone and in his place I will have a big boy who eats regular food, drinks regular milk, and walks all over the place on his own.

You are growing up so fast that I can barely keep up, much less remember all the details that I want to treasure forever.  Each time I sit down to write you a letter I wonder if I am leaving out something important.  I do know I’ll never forget that ornery smile you give me where you wrinkle up your nose, stick out your teeth, and scrunch up one eye.  I know that’s not a very good description, but every time you do it I can’t help but smile back.  Your little grin lights up the room and Mama’s heart.

Love,
Mama