Alexander - 10 months

Its been a rough month for you (and us) healthwise. You started the month with a nasty tummy bug. I will never forget the feeling of holding your tiny little body in the middle of the night while you dry-heaved and cried...so terrible! It took you about 5 days to shake that bug and then you were healthy and happy again for a few weeks. Unfortunately, you now have a triple-whammy...eye infection, upper respiratory infection, and ear infection! Even when you're sick you're still such a sweet kid which makes it even harder to see you feeling so terrible!

You are babbling a lot now and every few days I hear new sounds or patterns. Of course this makes me incredibly excited as your mom and as a speech-pathologist! Watching language develop is just SO COOL! We've been working with you to sign "more" when you're eating or playing and you'll now use the sign and sometimes say "mo" at the same time. You even used the sign while playing with your dad. He was giving you kisses and you signed "more" to ask for more kisses!

You are a baby on the move! You are cruising furniture and have started to scare us by letting go and balancing. You probably now spend as much time standing up as you do crawling or sitting. You're not walking yet but I don't think it will be long. You are also starting to climb things. Just this morning I turned around and you had crawled inside the dishwasher! Ugh!

You are really playful and love playing games and giggling. You have so much fun with peek-a-boo and will giggle when you cover up your face or yell at us to say "Where's Xander" if we're taking too long. You're not so great at covering up your entire face which is pretty funny. You really love to play in windows. Anyone on the other side is usually treated to lots of giggles and a view of your face smearing across the glass. You also have started this hilarious head bobbing from side to side which always makes us laugh which in turn makes you bob even more.

You took your first real vacation this month to France! Our trip will get it's own post but it's worth saying that you did great. You have now taken a total of 16 flights in your short life and are becoming a great traveler. You were well behaved on the plane and slept the entire time or fished for smiles from the other passengers. You also slept through the night the entire trip even though you were in new places. I still can't believe what a great sleeper you are...most of the time!

Xander...your personality continues to shine through this month. A lady on the plane commented that you are the happiest and friendliest baby she's ever met and of course I agreed and beamed with pride. You are really a joy and I love hanging out with you and being silly!