tenth mesaversary

We made it to 10 months and beyond! Things have been a bit crazy in the Yin family for the past few weeks. But we're back. Photos were finally taken and we're ready to share what is going on with our sweet Teddy Bear during his 10th month of life.

He's such a sweet little guy. He's been doing kisses for a while now: big, open mouth kisses on your cheek. It melts my heart. When he's feeling particularly clever, he does zerbits instead and it always makes me laugh. He also does "nose kisses" where he kisses the end of my nose, not so much with the big open mouth. We've been working on understanding the word "gentle", and he responds to it about 80% of the time. (He likes to hit me when he's nursing and he's super tired, and those little fists land hard!)

He learned how to hand things over this month. If I catch him with some contraband, I put my hand out and say "give it to mama" and he does every time. (Watch, now that I said it he'll never do it again!)

The lad is learning to feed himself with a spoon. It's pretty adorable. He gets it all right except his food usually ends up in his bib and not in his mouth. That doesn't faze him, he just reaches into the bib pouch and picks it up. We're pretty much done with spoon feeding him, he now just feeds himself. Sometimes with the spoon, but mostly with his awesome pincer grasp. He eats mostly fruits and veggies because he seems to have a very delicate balance and grains and cheese tend to bind him up for over a week. Poor kid. But he eats a whole array of veggies, he's particularly fond of squash in any of it's many forms. I bet he'll love pumpkin pie!

His "not-crawl" has turned into the "super not-crawl". The boy gets where he wants to go. He frequently ends up stuck up against a wall because he can't pivot anymore. He tosses toys and then "not-crawls" after them. He's gotten really good at playing rolling catch with his basketball. Now he combines the two and pushes his ball away so he can chase after it.

One day while I was on the phone with my sister, he learned how to put things inside something else. So he now puts his toys in his bucket. And puts his food back into his bowl. I also find him trying to copy me a lot. Whether it's something I did with my hands or some sound I'm making. He's awesome. So clever.

His vocabulary really increased. He does the mama, baba, dada, and then added the "um" sound. So he does yum, gyum, tyum, byum, and then picked up the "ooo" sound. He's always sung this little song when he's nursing. Now when I sing it to him, he repeats it. I love it.

He's a curious little fellow and loves to get into everything and anything he can. Particularly if it's been deemed contraband. He always finds a way.

We love our little Edmund. He now raises his hands about his head and does "so big!". And he is just that: so big.

Oh, and he sprouted a new tooth. A very painful, week-long sprouting. It was awesome.