TEN MONTHS OLD.

First off, I feel like it was just yesterday that I was writing a post about Patrick being 9 months old.  Well, this past month has officially flown by.  Because as I'm sitting here writing this post about my baby being TEN MONTHS OLD I look back and swear that it was just the other day I was blogging about him being 9 months old, or how he was finally crawling, which, side note, he is crawling ALL OVER THE PLACE now.  We have hidden everything.

I want to second my sentiment from last month: these pictures are NOT getting any easier to take.  This month especially--someone was especially interested in tearing off their 10 month sticker (which, cheapo mama here doesn't want destroyed cause the next kid is gonna use them too).  Oyyyy.  Luckily Mike was home this morning to help me wrangle the wiggly baby and get him to give us some hammy smiles (with the help of Baby Eintsein).  I'm sure in a month I'll be writing about how that picture was even harder to take.  I can't wait.

And like I did for his 9 month post, I'll leave you with some highlights of the past month and what Patrick has been up to:

• Little man--or big man!--is now 24 pounds 2 ounces.  He's gained a little over a pound in a month.  He is definitely growing like a weed and I'm sure going to continue to eat us out of house and home.  
• Speaking of eating, he eats about 8 containers of baby food/pouches a day in addition to 3 8oz. bottles of breastmilk.  This month we are really going to try and transition him over to a sippy cup and do-away with the bottles.  We use the Dr. Browns bottles and I would so love not to have to hand wash the bazillion bottle pieces everyday.  Wish us luck on this!
• Dude is wearing 18 - 24 month clothes, and honestly, the 18 month are kinda snug on him, so we lean towards 24 month/2T stuff now.  I want to add that there are NOT a lot of options out there for 24 month onesies and baby-esque type clothes, that Patrick still needs to wear.  So forgive me if a lot of his pictures he's wearing the same outfits.  We're a little limited on clothing that fits the little man comfortably.
• Has 6 teeth!  Four on the top, and two on the bottom.  When we catch a big smile that shows all of his teeth I could just melt--they are so darn cute and definitely make him look like a little boy instead of a baby.
• We had our last swim class this past Thursday.  We are sad that we won't be going back each week, but our wallets will be happy because of it.  Patrick had such a blast at his 6 swim classes, and I know he'll be excited to get back in the water this summer when we pick up swim class again.  He really made awesome progress in just six weeks--and we've even noticed him diving face first in the bathtub now and not even flinching because of it.
• Is learning to stand up to Scooter--and I say this in a good way.  Scooter has always just waltzed up to Patrick and lick-attacked him whenever he wants.  Now, Patrick is fighting back: he knows to push Scooter away when he doesn't want him to slobber all over his face.  Patrick also likes to "inspect" his collar (i.e. yank on it and try and eat it), and Scooter is so good he just sits there and takes it.  Mike and I always worried about how Scooter would do with our baby, and we couldn't be happier with the relationship our fur and human baby have developed.
• Still a rockstar sleeper.  Gets a good 12+ hours of sleep a night, and lately has been taking a 3-4+ hour nap during the day.  I attribute this to his being more mobile and just more tired when nap/bedtime comes around.  He definitely is crankyyyyyyy and whinyyyyyy when he's hungry and/or tired.  This is something new for him, because he's always been really easy going.  I attribute all of this to just his being more mobile = more tired = more fussy.
• For the most part, Patrick is still such a happy and smiley little boy!  He loves to giggle and loves to be tickled.  He loves to play with his toys and chew on his books.  He hasn't really had any bad separation anxiety or anything--he generally is happy with everyone, but most happy with mama and dad and his grandparents and aunts and uncles.  I really hope our future kids take their older brother's disposition lead!

Well, that's about all for Patrick's ten month stats.  I still can't believe how fast it is going!  I guess I need to start planning his 1st birthday party, which, spoiler, is going to be a Muppet themed one!  Little man loves him some Seasme Street, so we figured that'd fit perfectly with his Muppet themed 1st birthday party we're going to have for him.

Oh, and here are some lovely comparison collages--cause who doesn't love a good collage?!  Enjoy!