Still working without my good flash so I'm trying to overlook all the lighting/color/flash shadow issues in these pics, seeing through all that I can see our happy little man at ten months old!
His favorite things right now are speed crawling all over the house. It really is amazing how fast he is, I will walk from one end of the house to the other and he is at my heels the whole time. He also loves this tiny book, I think he just likes that it is his size and that he can open it up and look at the pictures all on his own. Ollie loves to crawl into his crib first thing in the morning, and he has gotten in trouble enough times for getting into wrestle Jed, so now he likes to crawl in there with books to read to him. Those are happy moments, hearing Ollie in the other room saying "Once upon a time..." and making up little stories while Jed slaps around on the pages or looks at his tiny book instead.
The boys seem to be turning a corner now where Jed is old enough to interact to some extent and it is so fun to see them actually playing together. Jed is getting a lot more vocal too. He has always been so calm and quiet that it has come as somewhat of a surprise to hear him yell back at Ollie and squeal loudly. Ollie loves to play "Come and get me!" and then Jed and I, or Jed and Dad get to chase him around the house- Ollie screams at the top of his lungs in delight the whole time, and sometimes it's hard to keep a hold of Jed because he kicks his little legs as hard as he can as if that will make us run faster and he squeals with joy every time we actually get close enough to Ollie in the chase that he can touch him. We've played this game since he was little, but now before he was mostly just smiles while we chased Ollie, now Jed comes to life and seems to love it just as much as Ollie does!
The other surprise with Jed is just how stubborn he is. I say that with a grin because I'm the second child and my Dad loves to tell me how stubborn I was(am) too. We've been signing to Jed for months and he finally broke through and started signing back to us for a 3-4 days, but then he decided that he hates it and therefore refuses to do it now. It is the silliest thing. I will sit there in front of him with food and sign food to him waiting for him to sign to me to let me know he wants it and instead of signing he will sit there and start slapping the tray on the high chair, and when that doesn't get him food he starts pulling his ears and his chin gets that little pout, that turns to a quiver until he can't stand it any more and he starts to cry. And then he lets his big crocodile tears roll down his cheeks making me look like the bad guy! The second I give in and give it to him he is instantly smiles. Since I'm a bit stubborn too we get in these little stand offs and I sit there and laugh over the fact that he is so tortured when all he has to do is sign. And that is not the only thing he is stubborn about, if he doesn't like the taste of something I'm feeding him he flat out refuses to eat it, he pierces his lips together tight and moves his head side to side and no airplane or anything like it will get him to open his mouth to sneak food in. And there I am all huffy because I just ordered like 10 pouches online of this food he is refusing to eat and all I can think is money down the drain so I'm not giving up easy- sometimes I win and sometimes he wins, and there have been a time or two that Ollie has won because after I give up he has eaten the rest of the food! Luckily it is only a few of like 20 different flavors that he doesn't like so we are picking our battles.
The very best thing about Jed right now is that he is finally getting snuggly again. I thought the days were over, he has always been so independent, always wanting to be held looking out, just wanting to lay in his bed to sleep instead of being rocked or cuddled. Now when I lay him down to sleep he wants me to pick him up and he will lay his head on my shoulder and let me sing to him while he snuggles me, and for the first time in forever he actually fell asleep snuggled on my shoulder at church (I usually have to put him in his car seat and cover it up so it's nice and dark like his room for him to fall asleep at church). Those little moments have been a piece of heaven and I hold onto him as long as I can. Love this little man with all my heart!
Some of the other pictures from his photo shoot- showing off his personality...
