He's a 10! A Freaking 10!

We celebrated Joey's 10-month birthday yesterday!  Can you believe that it has been 10-months?!?!?  Michael and I cannot!  10 months seems like such a big deal.  Maybe because we're only 2 months away from celebrating a year!  Crazy.  Okay, onto the boy...

Joey loves to clap now!  He claps at the dogs, the cat, us, music, whatever!  He also likes to wave his right arm up in the air.  He does this when you walk into a room, or hears music.  He does it when it seems like he's trying to tell you something.  It's really cute.  I actually think he's trying to bring Jersey to Alaska with the fist pump!  Holllaaa!   

Joey is actually a really happy baby.  Of course, he has his moments when he's hungry, or has a dirty diaper, or is just tired, and then it's a whole other story!  But, overall, he's usually really happy.  He laughs and smiles most of the time.   I would have never thought that this would have been his temperament going by the first four months of his life.  Ha ha!

Joey is quite the little snuggle bug!  He has always been a cuddler, but now, he likes to crawl up on your chest and cuddle with you before he goes to sleep for naps and bedtime.  It's so sweet.  I can be having the worst day ever, but as soon as Joey cuddles up with me, the badness seems to go away...at least for a little bit.   

He has become super talkative!  He really likes to imitate noises, too.  His favorite game, at the moment, is when you imitate him!  He thinks it is hilarious!  Joey and I had a 15 minute "scream" off the other day.  I would imitate every noise that Joey made.  He got pretty creative trying to make unique noises or super loud noises.  We were in the car while we were doing this...we got some pretty crazy looks while competing in our contest!

Joey really, really loves the cat and dogs.  He hugs them all of the time.  He gives them kisses.  He pets them.  The dogs seem to really love him, especially Freedom.  Bracken is starting to come around, too...I think this is because Joey likes to feed the dogs from his high chair now.  The dogs love this!  Riesling (the cat) seems to have taken to Joey too.  This is surprising since Joey pulls the cat's tail, grabs and pulls tufts of her fur, and chases her all over the house!  I really think the cat just likes the attention! 

Joey used to HATE the car seat!  Oh my gosh, it was so stressful riding anywhere with him because he would cry and scream the entire time (which was usually at least a 30 minute drive)!  We have sang "Row Your Boat", "Twinkle Little Star", "ABC's", "Rock-a-by Baby", and "Hush Little Baby" so many times that we could become part of the cast of "Glee"!  Joey doesn't mind the car seat so much anymore.  He still has his moments when you would have thought that we put him into the guillotine!  However, he has been upgraded to a convertible car seat, has lots of toys to play with, and we try to time the car trips around his naps.  The timing can be tricky, though.  You either want to do the car trip right after Joey has woken up or right when it's nap time.  He's usually really happy after naps, so he can handle the car seat no problem.  It's like mobile playtime!  If you take the ride right when he's ready to nod off, then there are no problems with the car seat at all because he's asleep!  Many days, I have driven an extra 30-40 minutes just so Joey can continue his nap!  I have yet to complete a successful car seat-to-crib transfer. 

Joey's sleep schedule is random.  He still goes to bed anytime between 630-730 PM and he'll wake between 7-830 AM.  His naps are all over the place.  A lot of days he'll take a good solid two-hour nap in the morning and then maybe a 20-minute nap in the afternoon.  Other days, he'll only take an hour nap, here and there.  We still don't lay Joey down at specific times...we follow his lead.  If he's rubbing his eyes, yawning, or just getting pissy over silly things, it's time for a nap.  This past week, when we laid Joey down for his nap, he babbled and played in his crib for an hour.  He eventually falls asleep, sometimes, and other times he does not nap period.  Even with bedtime, Joey was only waking once during the night for about a month.  Then, we had four days of him sleeping 12-hours straight!  But, don't get too excited, this past weekend, he was up two times a night!  Ugh!  Constant change!  This kid likes to keep us on our toes, that's for sure.