Donovan is Ten Months Old!
Monday, April 9th, 2012
3/29
Donovan has settled on his first word, and no one that knows Eric will be surprised. Yes, he is saying “ball!” nonstop =) It sounds more like “ba!” but there is no doubt what he means, as he spends the majority of his playtime chasing balls. When we’re at the park he stares at kids playing soccer, his little head bouncing back and forth like a real sports fan. He especially loves the big beach balls we have around the house. And anytime you want him to giggle, bouncing a ball while repeating “bounce!” gets him every time. =)
He’s starting to get a bit attached to Mama and Daddy. He does this cute thing where he reaches for you with one hand while pointing at you with the other. He also loves to give pats. In the less cute column, he tries to bite a lot. His seventh and eighth tooth are coming down, so that could be the reason. It’s also possible this is karma for his sister, who has bitten him recently as well. Sigh.
He crawls super fast and can climb up the whole staircase now. So we are being mindful of the gates.
He likes solid food now! At least he’ll open his mouth for bites of the pureed stuff, but he gets annoyed if you’re eating regular food and not sharing with him. He loves burritos! We went out for burritos and I gave him a taste, and he LOVED it! It’s so adorable. We had burritos again today and I turned my back on him for a second and he got ahold of a whole burrito. Yes, as you imagine, it was a huge mess but he was sooo happy. He also loves pizza crusts and any carbohydrate he can get ahold of. He doesn’t really like to pick up fruit or other slimy things, but he will eat banana slices and avocado.
4/7
So many things are changing for Donovan now! He outgrew the chair. The same thing happened with Serenity, when she got too big to sleep comfortably with me in the chair, it was sleep training time. So now Donovan is sleeping at night in his own crib instead of the pack n play, so I’m not tempted to get up with him in the night and feed him in the chair. It’s the third night, and last night he stayed there till 5:30 am, which is great!
I am kind of wishing he would take a pacifier right now. At around nine months, Serenity got addicted to her paci. When she gave it up, we had problems with her biting.  Well, we’re having problems with Donovan biting right now! So I wish he’d chew on the paci instead of us =) It’s not all the time but it’s enough to make you wary of his mouth getting too close!
Feeding him solid food is still a challenge. Occasionally he acts like he likes the pureed food, and the rest of the time it’s like trying to sneak a golf ball past the windmill in mini-golf, you have to time that spoon just right for the split second openings.
He is absolutely addicted to balls. Eric isn’t Dada anymore, he’s Ball. Which is appropriate actually, Donovan is quite intuitive =) It’s funny though, his first word is definitely “ball” and today he said “roll!” And he actually rolled the ball when he said it! Two times. So we know he’s already wanting to talk to Daddy about playing ball. =)
He loves playing switch person right now too. When he sees Daddy he goes right to him, and then he wants to go back to Mama, and back and forth as long as we’ll play. He’s such a sweet, snuggly baby. He lays his head on you and gives sweet pats. He might give kisses if we weren’t so scared of his teeth. Oh! And he gives five =)