cetan's weblog a man, no plan, a blog, golbanalponnama.

Nathan at 10 months

It's hard to believe the explosive rate of change Nathan has been exhibiting in his tenth month. There have been so many changes and developments that I'm afraid I'm losing track.

After he learned how to crawl he very quickly (within two days) was able to pull himself into a standing position using table legs, couches, coffee tables, our legs, doors, pretty much any surface taller than (or more vertical than) floor level. His proficiency in doing this has become so high that it would appear he's been doing it his whole life. He's working on getting better at moving to a sitting position from standing and already has shown marked improvement.

He's also been letting go of the things he uses to haul himself up with. Last night he stood, unaided, for four or five seconds. This is amazing to us.

Two weeks ago Nathan, with only two attempts, was able to climb a single step up from a sunken living room to the kitchen in the house of helloheather's mom and step-dad. He just crawled over to it, grabbed hold and hauled himself up as though he knew in advance exactly what he was going to do.

At the end of March, we took Nathan to the park and for the first time put him in a swing. It was a cold and damp day but he didn't seem to mind. He had a blast, especially when crazy daddy would "zoom" to him on the downward leg of the swing.

This past weekend he was able to spend time with torapines with whom he seemed completely enamored. He would give her such piercing looks and smiles; I think he was trying to show off in some cases...it was very cute. At one point, torapines raised her hands up and with a big smile said "yaaaaaay!" He immediately mimicked her. Every time she would do this, he would follow with both the same tone of voice and waving his arms around. It was wonderful to see.

Feeding him "solid" food has become a bit of a challenge. He's discovered that making raspberries while eating is a great way to spread his food from mouth to parent, and onto everything in-between. It's as if he's carpet-bombing the area with food droplets. But the interesting thing about this behavior is that he's actually trying to slurp the food off the spoon and that sometimes he just gets confused and blows out instead.

As helloheather pointed out in a recent blog entry, he has experienced the joy of being upside-down and now wants to be upside-down all the time (when picked up). From your arms he will throw himself backwards in an attempt to communicate this desire. But if you're not expecting it it can be very startling. Even though I now have learned to expect it, I still find it a bit stressful. Here's my child trying actively to experience gravity it one of the most abrupt ways available to him...I feel like I should carry him around wrapped in some sort of airbag suit...

In order to bring things full circle, I'll leave you with this: Because pulling himself up to a standing position has replaced jumping as Best. Activity. Ever., he's very excited to have helloheather or I hold his hands and allow him to "walk" all over the house. He walks in that typical "on the toes" baby sort of way, it's very cute. He receives so much joy from this activity and it makes us both very happy to see him so engaged.