ten months.

Big happenings this month...teeth and crawling.  At the end of the month, he cut his first tooth.  It wasn't as terrible as I was told it would be; he handled it all quite well.  And shortly after that, another one popped out.  His biting and gnawing on you isn't so cute anymore as it now hurts.  I dread when the top teeth come in if I'm still nursing.

And the crawling kicked in, slowly but surely.  He figured out how to get on his knees and started rocking back and forth.  One day we noticed he started scooting his knees forward a step or two.  We enticed him with toys and a trail of cheese (yes, for real, cheese), and he did it, gingerly walking his hands with little steps and sort of dragging his bent knees behind him.  We cheered so loudly that it startled him and he started crying.  We watched in amazement as he made his way forward toward the toy/cheese goal.  And then we'd scooch him back to the beginning to make the trek all over again.  After a few times, he seemed to be getting tired of it that at an arm's reach from his goal, he would simply collapse, lunging forward, and grasp his reward and then just lay there.  Eventually he figured out how to move his legs from his hips and we now have a crawler.  He may be slow taking teeny steps but he can still get into things, which means we've got to get on baby-proofing the house.  He is not a happy camper when you move him away from the new discoveries he's been making in the cupboards he opens and the wires he finds lying around.  

It's like he can't get enough of the new world that being mobile has opened up to him.  He's learning to pull himself up, which also means we've had to lower his crib bed.  He loves to practice walking while holding onto furniture or someone's hands.  He gets upset when you pick him up or try to sit him down when he's in the walking zone.  He'll grab onto your hands and push his tummy out as a way of getting himself on his feet so he can start walking.  He's still jiggly about it but he already seems so sure with every step he takes.

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A friend of mine encouraged me that, instead of seeing Ezra as "growing too fast," I see him as being exactly where he should be as he grows and develops.  There are these average expectations charted for various milestones in a child's development and it's so easy to compare your child to them and say he's behind or he's advanced.  I hear "every child is different" a lot, and I'm seeing how true that is with Ezra.  He's exactly where he needs to be and I wouldn't want it to be any different.