Month 10

Dear Evan,

In the past 30 days, you've changed from our precious, sweet baby boy to Evan the Terrible. Isn't it supposed to be the Terrible Twos? This is apparently the Terrible Tenth Month.

You started your first month by learning to transition from crawling to sitting. It's a super handy skill. Now, you can crawl to the front door and sit yourself up for a few minutes of traffic watching. You can sit up in your bed and project your loud, angry cries into the hallway where they can be heard better by me and your dad.

In the second half of the month, you started standing up on your own. So now, you want to stand on everything. If I'm sitting on the floor with you, you climb on me to get leverage for standing. Furniture, the dog, the edge of the bathtub (that didn't end well), your crib, baby gates, toys, the side of the pool... it's all fair game.

"Oh, hey guys! Look what I can do!" 

"I can totally stand up in here, right?"

"Hold still, Laika. I just need to stand up." 

You've been quite moody this month. On one hand, you've been super smiley and your belly laughs brighten up our days. On the other hand, you have no problem letting us know when you're mad. You arch your back and throw screaming fits. You even bit me out of anger once. 

You've been having some troubles at daycare. First, with pinching faces, pulling hair and biting. Later in the month, you decided to dominate the other babies by crawling on top of them and just laying there. Yep. You use your massiveness to crush the other babies. Lovely.

You're into everything. We started the month using an ottoman, a clothes basket and an end table to block off parts of the living room. It wasn't long before you were easily pushing them out of the way or finding ways around them. You seem to have a magnetic attraction to things that aren't yours.

"I could be playing with my toys,
but I'd rather climb through here." 

"What? Am I supposed to be peacefully rocking in here?
What do you think I am, some sort of baby?!" 

"You think these pillows are baby proofing. Not!
They just help me reach the knobs up here!" 

"Sweet! Laptop cords!" 

Your curiosity drives me crazy but I also love it. Your attention to the world around you makes me think you're really smart. It probably means you'll continue to get yourself into trouble but hopefully it means you'll be super inquisitive like your dad. We promise to do our best to challenge your brain and help you learn and explore new things.

This has been a month of outside activities-- bike riding, swinging and swimming. You haven't been a fan of the bike riding-- mostly because of the helmet. You took a while to warm up to the swinging but you love it now. I love, love, love sitting at your feet and pushing you high while you laugh out loud. You love splashing in the swimming pool and will be starting swim lessons next month.

My favorite development of the month: kissing. Making a kissing sound is a better description, I guess. I think it's the first thing that you'll really echo. I like to send kisses back and forth with you all the way home from daycare.

Mwah! 

It's been a challenging and fun month.

I love you, Evan the Terrible!

Mom