How the Tenth Month Went

Dear Zachary,

Your father has this book called The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year that details what we should be expecting regarding your development each month. For this month, it said "Unless your baby is extremely active, [he] won't make many big advances in motor skills this month." To a certain extent, that's true, as you are still just crawling and cruising, but you're definitely even faster, surer, and more daring than last month.

Now that your speed/movement is at like, an 8 (normal human is 6), you are that much closer to your goal of finally being able to unlock various achievements! Based on my observations, your goals seem to be:

1. Lick all the Apple products in the house. With three iPhones, two iPads, two laptops, and one iMac, you certainly have a ways to go. I think you're at four out of eight right now. 
2. Drink out of my water mug instead of your own. I'm not sure why mine is so appealing, especially since the straw isn't nice and soft and chewy silicone like yours, but someone else's is always better, I guess. 
3. Pull the router down off the back of the couch. If anyone is even remotely close to the couch, you will gladly use their leg as a stepping stone to climb up onto the couch so that you can finally destroy that nefarious black box with all the blinking lights. 
4. Play with all the small brown things associated with your brother. Kibble, litter, catnip beaver, fur tumbleweeds -- all of them need to be investigated. Now that you're faster than ever, we've had some close calls. 
5. Get into Daddy's closet to investigate all the tasty treats, namely the cedar block and the dry cleaning bags. 

I suppose it doesn't really help that we make all of those things, with the exception of #3, look really interesting. We do spend a fair amount of time with each of them, whether it be to check email, figure out when you need to nap, hydrating, taking care of Walnut, or deciding what to wear, and you are so, so, incredibly curious. No matter how we try to distract you or set up a barricade around the interesting object, you will not be deterred -- object permanence has set in -- and will continue trying (and crying) to reach that desired object. 

There have been a lot of articles written lately about people suffering from FoMO, or "fear of missing out," and I'm pretty sure you have an acute case. Even if you seem perfectly content playing with your stacking cups, the second I turn my attention elsewhere, you need to check it out too just in case it's more interesting than what you're doing. And if there are lots of people over, then napping/sleeping really turns into a struggle because WAIT WHAT MIGHT ALL THOSE PEOPLE BE DOING WITHOUT ME??? 

I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this, other than to say that I hope one day you turn that indefatigable drive and insatiable curiosity to worthy causes. Maybe you'll make some great scientific discovery (my preference) or become a great athlete (Daddy's preference, although it doesn't look like you're going to be that left-handed relief pitcher since your right hand is emerging as the dominant one), or maybe you'll just be an incredibly faithful family man who does what needs to be done (even better option than the previous two), but at any rate I'm reminded of the worship song that goes "single-minded, whole-hearted, one thing I ask...that I may follow after You all of my days." Hopefully that will be the case for you, and no matter what you grow up to be, I need to remember to be faithful in praying that for you. 

love,

Mommy

Your likes and dislikes basically remain unchanged since last month, so let's just focus on what's new this month:

• Clapping! After lots of examples, guided practice, and then independent practice, you are now an accomplished clapper, which is pretty fun. Even more fun, though, has been seeing you learn when clapping is appropriate. At first you would just do it because we were doing it, but eventually you figured out that clapping comes after an achievement, so you'll clap for other people (like other babies when they have successfully stacked blocks), when you hear someone say "good job," or when you like what someone else is doing. It's pretty heart-warming to see you be so encouraging. We're still working on high-fiving and waving, though.
• Learning to deliberately throw food you don't like on the floor. Before, I never used to be quite sure if you were dropping food because you were just bad at holding onto it, but now I know. You will take the offending zucchini, hold it over the edge of the highchair tray, look me in the eye, and then release it. But slippery little round blueberries have no trouble staying in your hands, so it's pretty obvious when you don't want to eat something. 
• Holding your arms up over your head when you don't want to be picked up. If you're busy playing and we want to -- oh the horrors -- pick you up under your armpits to put some pants on you, you'll raise your arms and just sliiiiide out of our grasp like some elastic, shapeshifting superhero. So smart.
• Growing. You grew out of your infant carseat and have transitioned into the big kid convertible seat and now need to use a "real" stroller when we go out! Curse you for being so freaking long...j/k.
• More teeth! You have four teeth on the top and two on the bottom plus two more just barely poking through the gums. Teething has been pretty hard on your sleep. Short naps and 5AM wakings are not fun.
• Climbing-wise, you can get on top of the plastic bins in your room now, and have tentatively learned to get off the bed and couch legs-first instead of head first. I say tentatively because you've only done it twice starting yesterday, and I'm not yet confident enough to be able to take my eyes off of you. 
• Acting like a cetacean. You love throwing yourself sideways onto piles of pillows like some kind of weird quasi-breach. After you throw yourself into the pillows, you'll squirm around until you've mushed your face into all that glorious textile sensation and then flip over and grin. It's super cute, but it also leaves slobber marks on everything. 
• Splashing in the bath. Around the same time you discovered clapping, you discovered that similar hand motions can move large quantities of water into the air and out of the tub. This brings you great delight but has discouraged your brother from hanging around to watch bath time. 
• "Swimming." After seeing how much fun you had with splashing in a small tub of water, we decided to try you in a larger body of water. The jury's still out, though, on how you feel about being in such a large pool. We've been going once or twice a week this month since it's been so warm, and while you don't cry and are no longer clinging to my neck for dear life, you're also not obviously enjoying yourself. Your favorite part of going to the pool still seems to be the abundance of rubber duckies to chew on. 

• The beginnings of separation anxiety. I was really, really, really hoping you'd be among the minority that doesn't go through this, but it looks like that's not going to be the case. You're still okay with being left in the church nursery, but you have a clear preference for being within two feet of me. Even being held by Daddy isn't good enough when it's book-reading and lullaby-singing time. We'll see how things progress when we go back to school!

Dubious face courtesy of the cold ice in your hands.