10 months old!

OMG, i can't believe i'm mom to a 10 month old baby, and that i have to return to work in 2 months!

movement - gabe has been an exploring machine! in this past week, i've caught him cruising along the table toys at my parents house, and he's definitely trying to figure out climbing...lifting his legs up but not quite sure what the next move is. we've also been "walking" with him when he's wearing his shoes...definitely a funny sight to behold :-)

babyproofing - with gabe's mobility, we've become aware of how much babyproofing we need to do in our condo. so far all we've done is cover up the electrical outlets :P

success with sippy! i fell asleep on the couch at my parents house, and gabe decided to reach over to the coffee table and help himself to his sippy cup. after all my failed attempts at getting him to drink water or juice, he decided to display his independence and drank his (watered down) gatorade without any help. however, since that one time incident, he's failed to continue with it :P

speech - during his crying fits this past week, my mom was convinced he said "mama", but it was mixed in with his head flopping and crying, so i wasn't sold on it completely. so for now, the common words are "wawa", "baba", and "dada". gabe's made a few other random sounds, like "ja", "ju" and "sh".

waving - out of the blue, gabe started waving (or signing). it's a strange type of wave (or sign). if anyone watches russell peters, one of his gigs talks about the east indian "i don't know" gesture (similar to screwing in a lightbulb). that's what gabe's "waving" looks like. but i'm not sure if he's trying to say "all done". in addition to the waving, he will sign "milk" simultaneously, but that just looks like he's waving to himself. whatever...it's all very cute :-)

family time - because chris only has sundays off work, we're trying to do more family activities instead of just running errands for the week. having said that, we've only done 2 activities: lunch @ granville island and a trip to the aquarium (amazingly, it was chris' first time!). because gabe still has 2 naps it can be tricky to coordinate outings in a 3 hour window.

randomness - gabe's 8th tooth has taken forever to pop up, sitting at his gumline for 2 weeks, but it's finally broken through. his hair has been growing like a weed in the past month, so we'll be getting his first official haircut in a couple weeks...just in time for our alaskan cruise! gabe loves playing with his toys at home and at my parents house...all the noises and pop-ups keep him entertained for hours. he's discovered the bottoms of his toys and likes to flip everything over and check'em out.

on a very happy note, gabe seems to have recovered 100% from his virus. it took a week but we definitely noticed an improvement yesterday...almost no fussing and the rash seems to have vanished.

on a "thank goodness for potty-training" note...gabe was so miserable last week that i didn't bother putting him on the potty and just let him poop in his cloth diapers. by day 3 he had developed a nasty diaper rash on his bum-bum so we quickly went back to using the potty during gabe's more pleasant moments (along with mama singing the wheels on the bus for 10 minutes!).

yippee! happiness in the lok household again!