Happy TenMonthiversary, Vake!

It is so hard to believe that we are getting close to Vake's birthday- hang on to your hats while we do some party planning!

At ten months, Vake is:

Crushing the growth curves- we are going to have updated stats on Monday;
wearing a size 6 diaper and 2t clothes;
Loving his dogs;
Still only the proud owner of six teeth, with two more on the way;
A master crawler- a skill truly acquired in the past week;
becoming a much pickier eater- really interested in yogurt and not as many other things right now;
sleeping 12 hours at night with two decent naps during the day;
loves his syllables, especially Da-da;
pulls up on everything, including his crib;
is very upset when his people walk away;
still a huge fan of bathtime;
and
has stood by himself momentarily!

Waiting at the Front Door

Ok. Tonight my little man was waiting for Daddy to get home. He pulled himself up onto the front door and started licking the glass. Yum. I had Taren take pictures- the quality's not good but you get the picture.

This was once I got the flash adjusted...

He was so happy to be standing up and waiting for Daddy to walk through the door- I snapped a quick video.

Rollin': The Remix

Under the "watched pot never boils" theory, I tried loading my video from earlier again but walked away from it instead of hovering nervously.

The quality is still atrocious but IT WORKED.

How much fun are little pumpkin and I having. He's got a remarkable attention span for "catch" too- he'll play for 5 minutes...

EDIT

Daddy taught him this trick last week.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Ok. The video is refusing to load but Vake has figured out how to play catch. I roll the ball to him, he rolls it back to me. Amazing.

All over the place.

I preface this by saying that I am aware that the current video situation is well-nigh close to totally untenable. I am using the video function of my point and shoot that is now four years old (I bought it in (I think) January 2005...)

That said, can you believe how well Vake is crawling now? It has morphed from a mostly-army crawl into a occasionally knees and hands or knees and forearms operation.

Waiting For Bathtime

Vake loves his bath- I think it is one of his favorite times of day- he'd turn into a complete prune if I would let him.

Now that he's got the whole pulling up and standing program down, he pulls up on the tub and watches the water pouring in- too cute.

The Legendary Santa Claus

In Richmond, we have the real Santa Claus. I don't know how he manages to coordinate the North Pole operation while in Richmond, but that's part of the Christmas miracle.

Richmond Santa has been around forever. He used to be at Miller & Rhoads and that's where I went to visit him when I was a little girl. It is also part of the Christmas miracle that he doesn't seem to have aged one little bit!

The truly amazing thing about Richmond Santa is that when you walk up to see him, he knows your name. It is just unbelievable. I think he and the Snow Queen have some way of communicating- the Snow Queen talks to you before you get to Santa.

My little Christmas reindeer thought that Santa was very interesting. He didn't cry but he also didn't seem to quite understand the beard, either. He made a big grab for it and I rushed up but Santa told me that it was ok. He was absolutely mystified by the whole process.

He loved all the other lights and sounds associated with the evening- his very favorite thing seemed to be a necklace worn by a worker that lights up.