Brendan is 10 1/2 months now! He CRUISES DOWN FURNITURE and UNDERSTANDS THINGS. He knows to come to us when we say “Come here” and will go get his bottle when we say “Where is your bottle?” He likes to sing too- even though his words aren’t the right ones, he gets the soul of the song right. He initiates peek-a-boo with a blanket and sometimes waves hi. He loves balloons and bubbles and pushing doors back and forth. Oh, he loves the bathroom too. Darrell taught him that one by banging on the tub with him and Mia one night. He loves to bite our chins and has 6 teeth now. And he is a bouncy ball fanatic- his very favorite games is bouncing plastic balls in our front entryway and hearing them clack- clack- clack- clack. In fact, he’s doing that very thing now.
He still drinks with bottles- he doesn’t care so much for sippy cups yet. I just bought him cups with round straw-like spouts. I hope he’ll take to those. He doesn’t drink near as much formula as he used to. On a good day he drinks 24 oz. On a bad day he drinks maybe 12 oz. He is a pickier eater as well- he has preferences and now leaves vegetables for last- or not at all. He loves carbohydrates like cheesy crackers. He also loves Gerber meat sticks, cheese pieces, rice and refried bean “balls” and any kind of noodles. He can tolerate strips of tortillascand bread now without choking. He still adores his pacifier.
He’s been a bit sick the past 2 days with a cough and at the end of January he was sick with a sinus infection (while at my MIL’s house, so he has 2 pediatricians now. The one up there is Dr. McLeroy). Icky, but it hasn’t been too bad. Zithromax kicked the infection’s butt quite rapidly. Within 3 hours of the first dose he looked so much better!
We took Brendan to Target to get portraits taken 2 days ago. We got some good shots, but nothing fantastic. Well, I was looking for fantastic so we took him again yesterday to get pictures made, this time at JCPenney’s. Curiously, the studios are the same company- with the same backgrounds and props as well. We got a fantastic or two this time and we used the Pooh and Piglet set my mom crocheted as props. I can’t wait to get them!
CIO Update- Brendan continued to whine (not the hard crying of days 1-3) for an average of 45 minutes a night until night #9. One night he even surprised me by STANDING UP in his crib! I had to pause the proceedings to do a short happy dance with him, lol. Then suddenly, he moved on to fussing for less than 5 minutes when put to bed! WooHoo! Now he gives a token 30 second protest and goes right to sleep! Sometimes he needs a pacifier replacement in the middle of the night but very few recently. He sleeps only 10 hours at night now. That extra hour was hard to give up. I used to read an hour before I went to sleep and I find that I just don’t get enough sleep to do that now. Oh well.
We went to Chuck E’ Cheese’s one night. Okay, we had so much fun we went back a few days later! We all like to climb up in the tubes and slide down the twisty tube slide. Mia is a bit shy up there, but Brendan, Travis and Darrell crawl around it with gusto. It’s so much fun!! Darrell just needs knee pads, lol.
He’s a very happy and playful toddler now. It just amazes us that he can zing across a room crawling now. He follows us like a puppy around the apartment but isn’t afraid to go exploring either when the mood strikes. He loves when we settle down to watch tv because he likes to climb up our legs and greet us and then go stand in front of the tv to jovially bang on the people. He gives them kisses too. He is a very loving, energetic and easy-going boy. I can hardly remember him as a newborn.