Colin is 10 months old!

Wow, time goes fast! This month has sped by with me back to work and Brian back to school this week. Mom is by herself with the kiddos for the first time - Brian's on a business trip! This morning at breakfast, I mentioned how Daddy was gone to Colin and he suddenly swung his head around looking for him, saying "dada, dada!" It was like you could see him thinking, "Oh yeah! Where is that guy?" In just the past few weeks, it seems like Colin has started to really understand many things we say... things like "outside," "ball," "puffs," "car" (his push car for going on rides outside) - he definitely knows when you're talking about things he likes!

Colin is growing like a weed. My arms ache if I hold him for more than a few minutes - he is becoming one solid boy! He has finally gotten over most of his reluctance to table food and is chowing down like crazy. We still puree a few unique foods for him, but mostly he gets whatever he can eat from our dinner, pureed as needed. His favorite is a pasta fagioli that Brian makes. Mostly he prefers finger foods, though - lentils, cheerios/puffs, shredded cheese, and a new discovery - spaghetti squash!

To counterbalance all these calories, Colin is "working out" like mad. He crawls really fast, back and forth, back and forth, all day long. He crawls to one surface and bangs for a while, then to another and bangs some more. The boy really, really likes to bang things - his teachers told me he wakes up his daycare friends! They proclaimed him "all boy," describing a situation where all the girls were fussing, crying one after the other, and got the boys caught up in it... except for Colin, who was just hanging out in the corner, wailing on some toys and ignoring all the drama.

Colin is getting more stable on his feet and becoming ever more adventurous with his pulling up. His newest trick is climbing the stairs (with intense supervision, of course). With determination, he can get all the way up to the top (luckily there is a landing halfway through). Sometimes, he tuckers out and yells his garbled version of "all done" midstep. (No one but Brian and I would be able to interpret this particular utterance, but the "uh da" sound is something we are very attuned to from mealtime!)



Colin's babbling has grown immensely in complexity. As far as official words go, he's still sticking with the old favorites of "mama," "dada," and "Anna" but he's also developed a garbled version of "uh-oh" to add to the "all done," and very occasionally he'll holler a "no," but I'm not convinced he knows what it means. With persistence and a little luck, you can also get him to repeat a particular sound, like "bah-bah" (which we work on a lot when we play with his ball) or "la-la" (which Anna got him to say tonight at dinner).



Colin seems to have developed a much more outgoing personality since his younger days when he constantly looked very serious. He's become much more of a flirt when people say hi to him, smiling and bobbing his head back and forth. Speaking of moving back and forth, the boy likes to dance! Just a few beats of music and he's shakin' his bottom! This fits well with Anna's personality and the two of them get a kick out of watching each other dance. He's also begun truly playing WITH his toys, not just banging them or sucking on them. He is in love with stacking rings on spindles - luckily we have a few of those kinds of things. He can now place a ball or cylinder through a hole on some of his toys - he's so proud of himself, he claps! Or, if you're lucky, you can get a high five:



Our lives are now hectic with everyone back to the grind, but we manage to squeeze in fun everyday, whether it be a trip to the playground, bike riding, or a short walk. On weekends we often have fun attending the Stanford games, or at least the festivities connected to the game. You'll see some hilarious pictures of Anna in Stanford gear this month! She started dance lessons this month - ballet and tap with a little tumbling at the end - she is in seventh heaven!



Anna also has discovered a "big girl" bike with training wheels that's been left in our courtyard. She's adopted it as her own and rides it almost everyday. I've taken her on the bike path outside the courtyard to teach how to ride on the right side of the road... she's pretty good at it!

Take a look at what we've been up to by clicking on the picture below:

Colin at 10 months