10 months - BLM

Well, we are about a week late for B's monthly update, but better late than never. We have all been passing around some kind of cold/virus since we got back from vacation so not much has been getting done around our house. Bradley has become such the character this month. He is full of personality and can already hold his own with big brother. He has learned to throw one heck of a temper tantrum when he doesn't get his way, will scream at you if you aren't paying attention to him, grunts with the best of them, and is so genuinely happy most of the time. He loves to wrestle around. Wes calls him our bear cub.

He really seems like much less of a baby and more like a toddler these days. Although he still prefers to army crawl most of the time, he will crawl normally sometimes until he gets lazy. His new thing is pull his right leg up to move as if he were going to try and stand up, and then use it to scoot along with the left leg dragging behind. He pulls up on everything and cruises around all of our furniture, cabinets, walls, doors, you name it. He thinks he is ready to walk, but he is not. Whenever we help him walk, he always lets go of one hand and tries to hold on with as little as possible. He lets go occasionally and will stand for a few seconds before he falls on his bottom. At least now he knows how to set himself down when he is done standing or playing rather than face planting like he used to do.

Ryan has recently discovered that if he puts his wolf ears on him, B doesn't seem to mind. The first time he did it, I just about died laughing. So of course, Ryan wants to put them on him all the time because it makes me and Wes laugh so much. This has become a nightly occurrence in our house.

He can clearly say Mama, Dada, and Buh bye at the appropriate times. I think he is working on some sort of name to call Ryan. I think it is some form of the word "brother" like "bra" or "bro." Not quite sure yet. He loves to wave, mostly to himself or when someone walks in the room and he gets super excited. He really just talks and makes noise all day long. I didn't think any kid could talk more than Ryan does, but I think he is going to give him a run for his money.

His third tooth popped through while we were in Grand Cayman and the boys were with GiGi. It was a bottom tooth, which is so weird since none of his top teeth had come through yet. It still looks so funny because it is fully in - he is just a little lopsided. One of his top middle teeth popped through a few days later one the boys went to CoCo and Poppy's, so fortunately for us (unfortunate for the grandparents), they had to deal with his crazy antics. Each tooth has had its own special journey, accompanied by a few days of screaming, waking up in the night, and just being uncomfortable all day long. Here he is showing off his nice bottom row of pearly whites.

Bradley has continued his same sleep patterns. Down by 7:30ish and wakes up for a bottle anywhere from 6-7:30 am and then usually is up by 7:30-8am. Still takes two naps a day around 10 am and 2 pm for a total of 2.5-3 hours a day normally. As for eating, he has four 8 oz. bottles and still continues to only eat pouches of purees. After seeing our grocery bill for just pouches alone over the past couple of weeks, we are working hard to put him on a program to end the pouches. Unfortunately, he gags at the texture of any sort of table food and will usually throw up. I am hoping one day in the very near future he is just going to decide to like real people food. And, poof, all of our problems will be solved!

He recently has decided he likes the swings at the park. He gets so relaxed and could sit in them for hours. We took our wagon up to the park for the first time yesterday, and he was in big kid heaven. He thought he was something special in that thing. It was really cute.

His current favorite toys include his activity table, the letter magnets on the side of the fridge (he loves to stand up and take them all off one at a time, creating a mine field in our kitchen), anything he can chew on, and of course all of Ryan's toys.

 Here he is doing his daily work on the letter magnets.

He currently loves to go in the bathroom, head straight to the toilet paper roll, pull up and spin the tp until his little heart is content. He then proceeds to eat the toilet paper and sometimes throws up. We call him our billy goat because he loves to chew on paper.

Things I love about this lil man:
*still has the sweetest two dimples
*whenever he is in his carseat or laying on the ground, he crosses his ankles
*loves to give kisses over and over (mostly open mouth kisses, but still sweet)
*his hair is all red on the top and mostly brown in the back - who knows what it will turn out to be?!
*his eyes are dark just like Ryan's - so dark, they almost look black
*sometimes he will just pat my leg or my back when I am holding him
*definitely a mama's boy right now
*so easy going and pretty adaptable (guess it comes with the territory of second borns)
*loves to go out and about - much happier when he is anywhere but home

Not sure of his height or weight, although he seems pretty skinny these days. He is still in 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers, but definitely seems to be getting taller. Everyone who sees him always says the same thing, " How old is he? (then I tell them) Oh wow, that is a huge kid!" Funny because hes always been around 50% for weight, but I guess he is pretty long. Taking his monthly pics is becoming a lot more difficult as he now tries to jump off the rocking chair and can't seem to sit still for more than 2 seconds.

 Love you B man!