All Things Haley: Story #22 - Progress and 10 Months!

Today the babies turned ten months old!!!

No, I didn't get to do our famous monkey shot. I got home from work at 5:30 and just wanted to spend every precious second on the floor with these littles because things are so exciting right now! Big progress around this little house!

On their ten month birthday, Grace decided to take her first half-step all by herself and Caleb decided to try a bit of a half-army crawl for the first time! We also had some awesome bottle holding by the big little man himself. Big, big progress!

I did say it was a half-step and a half-army crawl because we're not talking about the little lady walking and we're not saying that the little dude is pulling himself across the room by any means. But...

When I got home from work, Ben looked at me and said "I don't want you to get your hopes up, but Caleb sorta tucked his knee up and pushed himself toward a binky today!"

Enter giddy excitement :)

So I had to see for myself. I put a binky out in front of him, well outside of his reach. He wants to be on his back and only on his back right now, so I had to coax him onto his stomach with it first. Then I got his attention and watched the magic. He has figured out how to roll half way and sort of tuck his right knee up a little bit so that when he rolls back, his body sort of pushes a bit off of it and he scoots a little forward. Unfortunately, if he tucks and rolls just a little bit wrong, he rolls backward instead. But it's progress nonetheless! :)

Then Ben was walking Grace around holding onto both of her hands, with her basically trotting around the living room! I looked at her and made some silly faces, followed by a big scrunchy nose smile in response, and then determined speed walking in my direction. When she got close I told Ben to let go of her hands and instead of just falling forward or squatting down when she lost her balance, she took one more step all by herself and then fell into my arms! SO COOL! She didn't really repeat it, but I know it's coming way too soon. :)

And this morning when the babies woke up around 6:15, I fed Grace and then picked up Caleb and brought both of them into the playroom. Since they were both awake and I have to keep a hawk-eye on Grace right now, I set Caleb up on a boppy on the floor and handed him his bottle. He usually will hold it down on his chest and try to suck on it but not tilt it upright so the milk can come out. But this morning, he grabbed it pretty well and tilted right up! He was pulling off a lot so that made it really hard for him to keep feeding himself- he had to keep readjusting the bottle and I had to help him grab it in the right spot every time he pulled it away. But when he would grab it, he could tilt it up and drink until he pulled off again. If he wasn't pulling off, he would have been able to feed himself the whole time!!!

This isn't a good picture of it- this is what he used to do, just hold the bottle down. But when he's not distracted by the camera, he'll stick it in his mouth and tilt upward! Yay! Oh- and I love that this picture captured Grace's new obsession with twirling/pulling her hair while she eats. This is exactly what I used to do I guess!

So, lots of fun today with the littles! PLUS, they slept last night! And so did Ben and I! We were both a little down last night, but luckily we snapped out of it in enough time to eat a complete meal and try to turn our brains off for a little while before bed, which really helped with falling asleep. I think we went to bed around 10:30 and Caleb didn't wake up until 5:30...but he fell right back to sleep! SO AMAZING! We needed that, thanks babies.

Grace's new speed-crawling and her ever-present curiosity meant she was banished to baby jail more than once today so that Jessica could actually pay a little attention to Caleb. Look at that sad face! Don't worry, she doesn't mind being in her pack n' play for a little while.