Lucas 10 Months Old

Lucas 10 Months Old
August 8

 Look at me mom, a gate cannot stop me!

 A few times he has pulled the gate down on top of himself, but most of the time he decides to get into trouble somewhere else and wait until we have the gate down to climb the stairs!

 He doesn't like to play inside the exersaucer anymore, but he loves to crawl around it and pull himself up next to it.  He pulls himself up on everything right now.  I had to follow him around to try to get pictures of him on his 10 month birthday!  He is all over the place!

Some things about Lucas at 10 months old:

• Some of his other names are:  Luke Skywalker, Brother, Handsome Boy, Munchkin, Bubba, Lucas Matthew, Babyzilla, Trouble, and Cutie

•  He doesn’t like the feel of grass and always lifts feet when you put him down on it.  He is developing great stomach muscles!  A blanket is like a playpen on the grass because he won’t leave it.

• He has started to cry more.  He knows what he wants and when he wants it.  He does not like to have things taken away.  He especially loves cords and other unsafe objects.  He cries every time we lay him down to change his diaper or clothes.  He wants to be on the move. He doesn't like to have his face washed.

• Even though the above things are true, he is generally a very content little guy.  He plays on his own for little periods of time, is happy in the stroller just looking around, and can be easily consoled by his binky, blanket, toys, or other distractions.  We get so much enjoyment from him around here. 

• He loves blocks, magformers, his little piano, his sister's ponies, the shape sorter, and any other toys he can bang and eat.  Blocks are his very favorite.  He crawls all over holding them in his hands.  He also loves to knock down block towers.  We all laugh when he sees a tower and starts right for it.  It's like he can't have a tower standing on his watch.  It makes him so happy to knock them down that we often build tower after tower just so he can.  This is where he got his nickname "Babyzilla!"  When he comes down from his nap and the girls see him they start squealing "Babyzilla is coming, save the ponies!"

• He loves baths and splashing in the water.  He loves to swim and is happy in the water for a very long time.

• He is a little tornado.  He loves to completely clear off any surface he can reach including, but not limited to, the refrigerator, baskets of toys, bowls of food, the toy chest, chairs, etc.

• He loves reading books now.  He likes to bang on them and turn pages.  He especially loves them when they have animals and things to touch and feel.  Sometimes he gets upset if you won’t let him eat them!

• He crawls all over the place, and loves to climb the stairs.  He has multiple bruises on his forehead because he falls and bonks all the time.  He gets over it very quickly.

• Everything goes into his mouth.  He is a mouth first explorer, from the tiniest things he can find on the floor to things like the bathtub faucet!

• He loves, loves, loves mommy, but also loves people and especially other babies.  He gets pretty excited when Daddy gets home from work or his sisters walk in the room.

• He is still a good, fast nurser, but he is easily distracted.  I usually go upstairs where there isn't any action so he can concentrate.  He still flails his arms and legs around, pulls my hair, rubs my clothes, and pats me as he's eating.

• He is eating a lot of different people food now.  He loves to be able to feed himself, and make messes with his food.  He still likes baby oatmeal and squash, but has really taken to the new baby food we have introduced.  We started to give him the ones with meat or noodles, like turkey and vegetables, chicken noodle, chicken and rice, etc.  He loves those.  He is eating three meals a days now (when I can remember and it isn't so crazy, he definitely sleeps better when I get three in), and he is still nursing five or six times a day or so depending on how much he gets up at night.

• He doesn't like to be separated from us for bedtime.  He usually falls asleep while he is nursing for his two naps and bedtime.  When he doesn't fall asleep, he will occasionally cry really hard for a long time or sometimes go down without fussing at all, but most of the time he just cries for a minute or less and then is content. I have just enjoyed our time together so much when he is sleepy and snugly like that, so I just let him fall asleep while we're rocking and if he doesn't, I let him have his short little cry to settle down.  It's working for us for now!  He usually wakes up happy and plays and talks in his bed.  Almost every time I go to get him I find him standing and bouncing by the side of his crib.

• He has been a pretty bad sleeper this month because we have been traveling and changing schedules on him so much.  Plus he has been in a playpen in a room with me so many nights, he wakes up and wants to eat because he knows I'm there.  He's been waking up once or twice a night to eat and sometimes won't go back down and wants to snuggle in bed with me.  On our Santa Cruz trip I held him in bed with me half the night on both nights.  He has had a later schedule going to bed at 8 or 9 because we are out.  He has just had to nap in the car, in the playpen in random places, or in the stroller because we are always on the move.  He is settling down again now that we are home and he is in his own bed.  He is sleeping much better now.

• He is a snugly little guy, and I love it so much.  Whenever I pick him up he pats me and puts his head on my shoulder.  He will also settle down and snuggle to read a book or play with a toy in my lap.  

• Matt keeps saying, "He is SO BUSY!"  over and over again.  He has changed so much since we left for California at the beginning of the month, he can't believe how all over the place and into things he is now!

This has been a month of milestones for Lucas.  When we went for his 9 month appointment, it was a few days early since we were going out of town, and there were a few things he wasn't doing yet.  It didn't take long for him to check those things off his list.  Here are some milestones he reached this month (9-10 months):

7-02  Says "da da" over and over again to Matt.  He actually said "ma ma" a few weeks ago, but hasn't said it much since and I wasn't sure if it counted at the time!
7-08  Scooting along with his rolling
7-09  Waving, not in response to someone waving, but just when he feels like it
7-10  Army crawling, scooting, and lunging to get things he wants
7-11  First meat baby food, chicken noodle, he loved it
7-13  Can sit himself up from laying down
7-17  Starting to clap when he gets excited
7-18  Can stand while holding onto something
7-19  Trying to pull himself up to stand, can pull up to his knees
7-20  Crawling on his knees now!
7-21  Can pull himself all the way up to a stand now
8-01  Starting to cry on changing table or when we lay him down to change his diaper or dress him.  He doesn't want to be slowed down with his new found freedom!
8-02  Learned to crawl up stairs
8-03  Crawled all the way up the flight of stairs
8-03  Third tooth coming in, top, middle, right tooth.  The other two came in a few months ago.
8-05  Starting to screech and cry more when he doesn't get his way.  He's still almost perfect though!

10-11 months:
8-09  All four top, middle teeth are trying to come in at the same time.
8-19  Top, middle, left tooth finally came in
8-20  Slept through the night three nights in a row!  This has not happened more than a night or two here and there, and not at all last month.  I'm hoping it is the start of a new pattern.
8-22  Climbing up on things now.  He climbed up onto the big bucket of "My Little Ponies".