He loves to fill up his wagon and push it around outside - he thinks he is SOOO BIG and wears a permanent grin when he is outside.

Our little man turned 10 months old on January 27th!  He is changing daily and his face lights up when he learns something new or accomplishes something novel (like successfully removing the roll of toilet paper and putting it in the toilet, or stepping in the dog’s water bowl and dancing while wearing shoes and socks).  His newest accomplishments include the newfound independence of walking, which started when he took his first real steps across a whole room to greet me when I picked him up from Granny’s on January 19th.  I had been home with him all day on that Monday MLK day, but of course he had to wait until we weren’t there to see him take off.

Since then, he has started repeating everything and now says the words ‘more,’ ‘bye-bye,’ ‘dog,’ ‘ball,’ ‘bath,’ ‘book,’ and ‘no’ consistently and spontaneously.  His favorite book is the ‘tut duk’ (Dr. Seuss’ The Foot Book).  And, he says ‘eee eee ooo eee’ to his monkey lovie as part of his bedtime routine.  Needless to say,  he keeps us on our toes and laughing constantly.

His newest mealtime trick (other than finally drinking out of a straw cup on his own) is spitting raspberry-ing out several of the nutritious foods that used to be his favorites, like green peas, apples, avocado, banana, and lima beans.  Mealtimes are also much more of a challenge these days since we have learned that he does indeed have an egg allergy.  Despite giving him exclusively breastmilk through 7 months, waiting until after 5 months to start solids, and introducing all organic foods at the textbook times, we join the ranks of parents of children with food allergies.  We are hoping he grows out of it in the next few years, but in the meantime I am researching eggless birthday cakes, and his diaper bag is packed with Benadryl and a hopefully unnecessary Epipen Jr.  Any suggestions for nutritious eggless meals will be much appreciated.  I had him tested for peanuts just to see when we were with the allergist, and he was negative, so at least peanut butter is a protein option, and he loves chicken and turkey.

We can’t wait to see what the next month has in store for our growing little man – a car seat upgrade, perhaps?