I'll do it myself, thank you

While Caiden is mostly eating finger food, sometimes we still give him purees. Why? Well we still have some left, plus sometimes by the end of the day Caiden is cranky and all those pieces of veggies that I lovingly cooked and chopped up wind up on the floor. On such days we'll dig into the freezer and thaw out a frozen cube of purees. The other day, Caiden wanted to operate the spoon himself. I'd fill it up with food, he'd grab it and power it down. He did a very good job, although he didn't like releasing the spoon back into my control for refills.

Still a messy operation, but at least some of it got in his mouth

Stepping along

Caiden has been taking the random step or two every once in a while, but tonight he bumped it up to 5 or 6. We tried so hard to capture it on camera, but couldn't get it. Party because we weren't quick enough, partly because once Caiden saw the video camera he only wanted to play with it.

We'll post video proof as soon as we can get it on camera!

Cabin Fever!

Caiden doesn't like to be cooped up in the house all day, so between Dan and I being sick this weekend and hurricane Irene paying New England a visit, we all went a little stir crazy!! We did our best to keep the little man entertained, we even tried convincing him to hang still on the couch but no dice.

We explored every corner of the house

Played keep away with the camera

Played with race cars in the play room

Took basket rides all around the house

Practiced our handling skills

Not totally smooth yet...

And jammed out to some music

Phew, we made it though alive (and no damage to our property to boot). Dan and I did get a little goofy though, and teased Caiden a little... poor kid

Yoga baby

If you spend a little time with Caiden you'll see he has an obsession with baby yoga, more specifically downward dog. He gets into this position frequently. Sometimes he crawls around like this. Sometimes he gets thisclose to doing a somersault.

When he is not busy perfecting this pose, he is often hard at work on his basketball skills. His ability to stand is growing by leaps and bounds every day, and this morning at Nana's he was teaching himself to dribble.

Another recent discovery is his own hair. Caiden has been yanking on other people's hair for months now, but he recently found out that he's got his own head full of hair. He pulls at it all of the time, even when he's nursing. The unfortunate side effect of this discovery is the fact he does this while he's eating, too. We used to be able to get by without shampooing his hair every day, but now it's a must. Sticky, gooey hands go straight into the hair. Apparently, banana makes a good hair gel.

We had a good weekend. Aunt Elizabeth babysat on Saturday night so Dan and I could have a night out. And my college friend Jen came over yesterday for a visit. Caiden thought she was swell. He was feeling a little grumpy most of the day, but broke out in giggles for her.

Going for a walk

Here is some footage of Caiden cruising around!

Daddy's boy

Caiden has always been a daddy's boy. This morning, when Caiden pinched his finger in the door, all he wanted was Dad to comfort him. I'm not going to lie, that hurt this mom's feelings a little. I got some good snuggles in later though.

And I get to see this smile when I pick Caiden up at daycare. He was waiting for me by the door yesterday.

Some photos from our lunch visit yesterday

10 months

Caiden is 10 months old!!

Activity: Caiden can walk with assistance, stand for several seconds without support, and climb up a flight of stairs (under CLOSE supervision, he slips easily and sometimes tries to sit back, not realizing it's just air behind him!).He is a super speedy crawler and keeps us on our toes.

He has also been honing his basketball skills!

Personality: The day after a little sleep training exercise 2 weeks ago, Caiden started to display signs of separation anxiety when I dropped him off at daycare. He's been consistent with it ever since. It was SO much easier dropping him off at daycare when he got excited when we walked in the door. But now, he holds on tight, cries when I put him down, tries to climb up my legs... ugh. It's awful. I am crossing my fingers and toes that he gets over this phase soon. At home he is a happy happy boy. He giggles for no reason and is a ton of fun. He definitely has a streak of wild child in him though. There is loud protesting when he doesn't get what he wants! He has been a little grumpy the past few days though, I think there might be another tooth working its way in.

Hanging outside with daycare

Food: we saw lots of improvements with self-feeding this month. In fact, he often doesn't want to be fed by a spoon. He wants to do it himself! His favorites are scrambled eggs, most veggies, fruit and (almond flour) pancakes. He recently discovered how to spit food out, and sometimes he spits food out and then puts it back in his mouth and eats it. Haha, nice!! I think he's just experimenting.

Sleep: Well, it seems that sleep training works on this little man but only for a little while. We will sleep train, then we'll have a week or two of great sleeping, then he starts to creep slowly back into his old ways. I'm now wary of sleep training though, I can't shake the feeling that his newly developed separation anxiety is related. On another note, Caiden has finally organized himself into 2 naps a day, at somewhat predictable times, which makes life much easier!