10 months of laughter

October 6, 2017

Dear Isaac Karl,

I cannot believe it has already been 10 months since you made your entrance into this world! When I look at you, it is hard to believe there was ever a time when I “wasn’t ready for another baby.” I cannot imagine life without you, my dear, sweet son.

You continue to be defined by your happy and easy-going nature. Your laugh is about my favorite sound in the world. Your smile makes my heart do a flip-flop. I’m so in love! I gaze at

you and am just filled with pride that you are my son. I think, “That beautiful boy! He is mine!”

First haircut

At 10 months, you are gaining (or trying to gain) more control over your world, even as you are starting to find some frustration in it not always going the way you’d like. You are an excellent crawler, now on all fours instead of Army style. This makes you happy, but not as happy as being able to keep up with Grace on two feet would. (But you are pulling yourself up and cruising on furniture now, so walking isn’t far away!) With your mobility comes a dislike of being made to stay still. This is especially true during diaper changes, which, I have to be honest kid, are not fun with you. You do not like to be still on your back! You are always squirming and rolling and crawling away, and getting really mad at us when we pin you down. We used to be able to distract you with books or toys, but now you’ll have none of it. You want to explore the world!

You are eating us out of house and home. Generally, we all eat our dinners… and then we scrape whatever anyone else didn’t eat onto your plate and let you finish that, too. I love a kid with a healthy appetite! You won’t eat just anything – you have standards – but almost, and what you do eat, you eat a lot of it.

You are sleeping really well (with some exceptions!). Though you don’t sleep through every

night, you usually sleep at least 8 if not 10 or 12 hours straight, and when you wake up in the middle of the night to eat, you go right back to sleep. Thanks for this, son. We really, really appreciate it. More 12 hours nights would be even better!

You are saying things that sound like words – especially “mama,” which you say more than “dada”! Thanks for that! You love to play with your sister. We joke that your favorite toy is whatever Grace is playing with. Another favorite toy of yours is the recycling bin. You’re interested in books in theory, but not really interested in sitting still for them. That’s okay, it’s kind of a 10mo MO. You like singing and clapping and dancing, so I try to give you lots of chances for this to happen. You relish in them all.

As happy as you are, we have noticed you’re a bit more sensitive than your sister, who rolls with the punches and hardly bats an eye. You, when you discern an injustice of some sort, take it very personally. Your face and cries seem to say, “I’m such a good guy most of the time – so why would this happen to me now??” As soon as we pick you up, all is well with the world again. You just really love to know that we care about your feelings. That’s okay, buddy. We all like to have our feelings validated.

Grace taking Isaac to daycare

You are very careful. Again, I know we shouldn’t compare our kids, but I’m going to – Grace is the sort to fearlessly jump in with both feet and see what happens. But you are more calculating. You want to test the waters. When I taught Grace to go down the stairs, it took one lesson before she was sliding all the way down backwards on her belly. You have taken a few months to learn this skill, and even now, though

you can get back down the stairs, you do it carefully, reaching with your foot to find one step at a time. But when you’ve completed the task before you, man, are you proud of yourself! What a grin that elicits! I love the care that you put into everything you do. You are a careful, determined, focused little guy – and these are wonderful skills to have!

I love every moment of who you are right now (except diaper changes – seriously, kid!), but I can’t wait to see what a beautiful, sensitive, thoughtful, determined, inquisitive, loving, caring person you turn into in the coming years. I love you, my Isaac Karl!

                                                                                                Love,

                                                                                                Mama