Dear Alex,

DOUBLE DIGITS! 10 months! My goodness, the time is flying by so fast. This was such a fun month. Your personality is making itself increasingly apparent, and it’s adorable! Well, most of the time it’s adorable…. haha. You have some of your mom & dad’s attitude too. 😉 That can try our patience at times, but overall you are such a sweet little guy. You are becoming more social, really enjoying interactions with others and imitating some of the things we do. For example, when we clap you also “clap” (although Dad says it more closely resembles a gorilla slapping his chest, haha). Here’s another great example:

It’s such a hoot when we stumble across something that you like to imitate. Some other examples are blowing raspberries, “dancing” along to music (more like bopping/nodding your head), and imitating simple sounds we make. This sound in particular was a hit around Halloween:

However, I’ve saved my favorite example for last. A few weeks ago I was putting you to bed after a VERY busy Saturday… after I’d given you your bottle & turned off the light, & held you close to me as usual. Those few cuddly minutes in the dark silence every night are truly what I live for, as I’ve mentioned in previous letters, but what happened next was hands-down the most heart melting, all over wonderful “mommy moment” I’ve had so far.  I kissed your cheek, and you responded by reaching up to grab my face & gave me a (big, wet, sloppy, adorable) kiss in return! And even though it was pretty dark, I could see well enough to catch that big goofy grin you had on your face as you pulled back after the kiss. So I kissed you on the cheek again, and again you returned the favor. We spent a good five minutes like that… smiling, giggling & kissing each other’s cheeks, before you laid down to go to sleep. You’ve “kissed” me once or twice since then, but it’s still very rare. But it’s things like that which make all the tougher/more challenging times worth it. 🙂

Anyway, another really awesome thing happened this month– your FIRST Halloween! We started preparing for Halloween early with your “zombie noises,” as you saw above. The noises went very well with your costume:

You attended your very first Halloween party with your friends from our working moms + babies group.

It was a lot of fun, and so cute to see you & the other babies all dressed up in your costumes! Later that weekend we decorated pumpkins.

You enjoyed getting the paint on your hands (& getting messy in general, haha)… but you were not a fan of me manipulating your hands to make these prints! Despite that, I think they turned out pretty good. And of course, on Halloween night you went trick-or-treating! You & I were quite the team: Franken-mommy & Franken-baby! 🙂

We only went to one house (Our next-door neighbor, Kami’s) as more of a “symbolic” trick-or-treating since it was close to your bedtime…. not to mention you can’t walk or eat candy yet. Really I think trick-or-treating will be much more fun for you next year. However, you still seemed to get a real kick out of it & knew just what to do!

Admittedly, I ate the once piece of candy you brought home. :-X Sorry about that! In my defense, candy is still a choking hazard for you, so you couldn’t have it. But don’t worry, to make up for not having candy we gave you something even better….

And at bedtime you got to wear some really awesome glow-in-the-dark Halloween jammies!

A successful first Halloween, I’d say! 🙂 Here are some of the other fun things we did this month:

Me, you & Dad ran a kid/stroller-themed 5K at the National Harbor. The last few months I’ve finally gotten into jogging, and you like to come along for the ride. 🙂 At the end of the race they had a big lunch, kiddie rock band & lots of kid-friendly activities for us to enjoy. You seemed to have a lot of fun, especially down on the beach!

Of course, we also took you out for several meals during the month. The past weekend you & Dad had fun playing with tortillas at Chevy’s, a Mexican place near my house.

LOL. There’s always lots of fun to be had during meals in our family:

Hanging out in our jammies one Saturday morning. 🙂 For some reason, this $1 tube of bubbles is hands-down your favorite toy. Not even because of the bubbles… you just like carrying the tube around. You also really enjoy empty water bottles. Why do we bother with all these other pricey toys?! Haha

This table is one of your other favorite things these days, mostly because you like to stand/walk around it. But more & more often lately you’ve been trying to crawl under it, getting yourself stuck. The first time it happened, I thought it was so funny that I took a picture of it before I helped you out. :-X Mean mommy!

A lesson in sharing with your friend Julian. 😉 You LOVE these little board books! Maybe you’ll be a little bookworm like me.

Tickles with Papa! You are one of the most ticklish babies I’ve ever met… giggles are rare but you get this biggest open-mouthed grin & do this weird silent laugh/squealing sound. It’s hilarious and ridiculously adorable! (I may be biased, I suppose…)

More handsome smiles! We recently did a “mini shoot” with a local photographer as part of a group deal with my working moms + babies group. They had this “fun” station set up as well as “fall” & “holiday” stations. We got some really cute photos, but it was hard to keep things out of your mouth long enough for you to smile…

LOL. Seriously, I’d say in at least 75% of the photos we take of you lately, you’ve got something in your mouth. I can’t wait for that phase to end…

It’s a constant battle! I have to always keep something on hand that’s safe to chew on, so that when you start trying to eat things that are weird/gross (like above, you were trying to eat sticks & leaves) I can give you a substitute. Sophie the giraffe lives in my purse more often than not these days.

Let me tell you, it’s getting harder & harder to take these monthly pics. You DO. NOT. STAY. STILL. This month it became a game for you to try to crawl away, and you thought it was absolutely hilarious whenever I’d grab you & put you back in place on this blanket. Hardy har har. You wore me out, but it did make for some cute (but blurry) photos. 😉 And that’s about it for this month! As always, you can find more photos at http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/laurapachec0/library/Alex%20Month%2010. There’s just never enough room here for all of them.

Next month I will probably wait to post until after Christmas so that I can write about the holidays all in one letter. Dad & I are so excited to share this first holiday season with you! We love you so much, Alex!

All my love,
Mom