It didn’t take Adam long to determine that it’s much more fun to walk now when he wants to get somewhere.  Slowly he’s choosing to walk from point A to B reather than crawling now.

It didn’t take him long to figure this whole walking thing out…

Late, as usual. He’s almost 10 months old now. And technically, this doesn’t include his actual stats because the paper with his weight and height is around here somewhere, but I don’t know where and I don’t feel like looking for it. So there.

Anyway, he’s just over 20 pounds, down to the 50th percentile, and 75th percentile for height. He hasn’t gained much weight at all in the last few months, but the doctor said that’s to be expected, and that he may not gain at all between now and his 1 year appointment. And it makes sense since none of the rest of us are unusually large people. He eats well and is still nursing at least 6 times per day, usually around 6 am, 9:30, sometimes at 11, 1:30, 4, and at bedtime, and then at least once or twice through the night. He also eats meals with the twins, and he far prefers feeding himself a cracker or these apple chips to being fed baby food from a spoon. He doesn’t seem to have the same insatiable appetite as the twins did at this age, though. It’s rare that he seems to be fussy from hunger, though he does occasionally crawl over and start to manhandle me when he wants to nurse and I haven’t been paying attention to the time.

My baby has four teeth now. The top two are all the way through and have a huge gap between them, giving him quite the SpongeBob grin. The bottom two just came through in the last few days and are in an inverted v shape. We have a dentist appointment for all three kids next week, so hopefully Dr. Dave can reassure me that their current positions will change. Teething seems to make him a bit clingy and fussy, but overall not too whiny or miserable to be around. A little Motrin at bedtime and he’s good to go.

He took a few steps today, which was exciting and bittersweet at the same time. He’s been cruising on furniture and pushing anything he can get to move for weeks. Rearranging the furniture is a favorite activity since he likes being on his feet so much. And he’d taken one, maybe 2 steps over the last couple of weeks, but you could see it click in his mind today as he tried to toddle back and forth between Don and me. He was loving it, giggling away, and eventually got so excited by it that he couldn’t keep going because as soon as we tried to stand him up, he was lunging forward. Don got it on video. I can’t imagine him walking, but he is so ready to.

Other favorite activities include crawling away anytime he’s naked, looking back at me once he’s out of arm’s reach with a smirk before he takes off down the hall, laughing. We have to keep the bathroom doors closed because he is obsessed with the toilet and trying to splash in it. It makes potty trips with Avery and Alex quite the challenge. In the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to read to him every day and he really likes books that let him feel different textures. A favorite is That’s Not My Lion which he got from Aunt Kate for Christmas. He smiles and pats the pictures and tries to turn the pages already. I’d been feeling guilty about not reading to him – 2nd child syndrome – there’s never enough time to give him all the attention he deserves, but I am making sure to do it every day now that I see how much he enjoys it. We also play catch every day – he loves sitting across from me and catching his soft soccer ball and handing or tossing it back to me. Most of the time, though, he’s happy to be independent and just crawl around and explore different toys. Soooo different than his brother and sister in that respect. He seems to be ahead of the curve in most of his development. Most of the things I circled on his checklist at his appointment put him at the 12 month old level as far as standing, saying Mama and Dada, and other skills. Again, he just doesn’t want to be a baby. He wants to be like the big brother and sister he idolizes!

He and Alex are getting into typical brotherly trouble. Alex loves to climb into his crib after naptime in the afternoons and jump around with him, and even wrestle with him. I used to try to stop it, thinking Alex would hurt him, but Adam loves it when his big brother tosses him around a little. They both belly laugh, full of joy, when one is on top of the other. So now I just try to supervise. Alex loves his baby brother so much, and it makes me so happy to see how Alex talks to him with a high pitched baby voice, tries to feed him, and occasionally even shares a toy.

It’s just amazing what a sweet, smart, happy, easygoing kid Adam is. He’s rarely fussy, and when he is, it’s easily remedied. Now, if only I could get him to sleep through the night… Right now, I have visions of his wife someday having to get up twice a night to bring him a glass of milk!

See some good quality father/son bonding time as we practice our funny noise making ability when mom is away tutoring…

Bedtime has been insane around here for the twins. They would be awake for 2 plus hours at night looking out their window, playing, talking, crying, asking for bathroom trips, etc. They just fed off eachother’s energy and silliness. And then of course they were miserable all the next day. Those two are so sensitive when it comes to sleep. Don and I were frustrated and stressed out over it, and we were being really inconsistent in our responses to their nonsense.

Anyway, I went back to my well worn copy of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and realized that my thoughts that they need their own rooms was probably right. But that can’t happen in our house. So we decided to put Avery down on a kid sized Aerobed in our room and then move her to her bed after she was asleep. We also promised them a reward of M&Ms in the morning for going to sleep without crying or coming out of the room. And we committed ourselves to silent returns to bed, even if it took 1000 times. Night 1 was rough and nobody got M&Ms. Night 2 was better – Avery cried for 3 minutes and came out twice for potty breaks and Alex did about the same. I gave them each 1 this morning as a motivator because it was such an improvement over the first night. Tonight – no crying and no doors opened! I just moved Avery to her bed. It’s the earliest and quietest bedtime we’ve had in weeks, maybe months. I am soooo happy!

Now, to get Adam on the right track. He goes down well but is often up every 2-3 hours.

Alex and Avery trying out their new trampolines that they got for Christmas.  And yes, this has been serving as our new coffee table since Christmas!  It will be moved down to the basement before the week is over…

Here’s some video of avery’s “It was overwhelming” Christmas experience and various other videos of them opening gifts, playing with new toys, etc.

Note: It’s driving me nuts that I can’t figure out a way to embed HD video in the playlists (what those videos use).  It may be a limitation of YouTube right now, I’m still looking into it.

Non HD (lower bandwidth) version can be seen here.

You can see the lower quality (non HD) version here.