Luis is Ten Months!

On Monday, my friend Erika's sea freight arrived from the US. Like us, she brought all of her baby stuff. And like us, she was having a tough time finding a place to stow everything. So, she sent a few things over to our place - like this exersaucer (her daughter, Skylar is two, and is a bit old for this). It's been over two months since we left our exersaucer at Mom's house. Luis didn't show any signs of remembering what this was. He did, however, show lots of signs of liking it. Several times a day, he crawls through the base like he is doing here. It's pretty funny to watch.

Monday was also Luis's 10-month birthday. And it was the day we took him to see the pediatrician for conjunctivitis (which, by the way, has cleared up completely). He weighed 9.6 kg - which is roughly 21lbs 3oz. This keeps in him in the ~45% for weight (for US babies, clearly not for Indian babies!). Luis is now officially out of all of his 9mo clothes. They measured his length to be 74cm (about 29"). That's only an inch longer than he was at 8mo. Being as the reason he can't wear 9mo clothes anymore is that they are too short, I think he's grown more than an inch.

He's picked up a few new tricks lately. Every time he comes into contact with Ashley, he grabs a fist full of fur. And every time, I release his hand, say "Gently, pet the dog gently" and show him how to stroke Ashley instead of grabbing her. Well, on Monday, he petted her properly for the first time. Boy was he proud of himself!! He's done it several times since - each time looking up at me with proud eyes. Then, Luis was reaching up to touch one of the indoor plants we have. Wanting to teach respect for the plants, I said, "Gently, gently." He paused, looked at me, and then looked around the room for Ashley!!
Luis likes to stand up next to a chair and then push the chair around, like a home-made walker.
He is more aware of the idea of 'over', 'under', and 'around'. He frequently will get down on his hands and knees to look under the living room table. Then he sits up to look over it. Then back down to look under again. I find it to be a very fun cycle to watch.
Luis is currently learning how to wave bye-bye. We have lots of people to help him with it: now when Pauline, Pavarti and Shabina leave, they all very dutifully stop and wave and say Bye Bye to Luis. He looks and smiles, but that's it. What he does like to do is to shake his head from side to side. It's as if he's saying "no", but he's not. He's just shaking his head. I think I have a video clip of it. If anyone is interested, I can email it to you.