Matthew: Ten Months!

I spy a little something white in his mouth! 

Height/Weight: Thanks to an unplanned doctor's visit a few days after he was 10 months old (thankyouverymuch teething and/thrush for the intense nursing problems), I can pretty accurately say that his weight is up to 19lbs 7oz, which is almost a full pound heavier than he was at nine months. Some people might think the numbers are inaccurate, especially considering they used a different scale than they normally do, but I say that if you watch this kid eat for even just one meal you wouldn't doubt that weight gain in the least. They didn't check his height, though, but if I had to guess I would say it hasn't increased at quite the same rate because I haven't really noticed issues with his pants being too short all of the sudden.

Wearing: Still going strong in the size three diapers. I could probably move him up to size four diapers without any issues, but I just bought another large box of size three (because they were more economical than the size four!), so at the very least he'll be wearing those until they are gone. He's still hanging out in between 6-9 and 9-12 month clothing, although there has been more than one occasion as of late where I've put him in a 6-9 month outfit and deemed it his "last go" in that outfit, so I think the days of 6-9 month clothing are slowly becoming numbered. 

Eating: Well. If there was ever any doubt that I was going to need to go back to work at some point to pay for the grocery bill for this house, this kid has pretty much sealed that deal. He has started to exclusively eat what we are eating for dinner, and for the most part eats whatever leftovers are in the fridge for lunch, and he LOVES it. All of it. On more than one occasion Darrell has diced up his food for dinner thinking that he's also diced up enough for there to be a lunch portion for Matthew for the next day only to have Matthew eat it ALL for dinner. He gets legit hangry (seriously--soooo hangry) if he doesn't eat every two hours (sometimes he'll stretch it to three hours with a nap, but more often than not he just ends up taking a short nap so he can get food sooner), but we've finally got him in to a meal/snacks/nursing routine that seems to work pretty well and helps to avoid most of the hanger: morning nursing, breakfast, nursing after nap, lunch, nursing after nap, snack, dinner, nursing before bed. Mentally, I do so much better with this kind of schedule and predictability, so even though there's added work in prepping food for him (plus the added cost of feeding the little pig--which we've apparently said enough that Connor has now started to say it whenever we comment on how much Matthew is eating #whoops), I'm not complaining in the least.

Sleeping: Unfortunately, there was no magically switch that flipped between nine and ten months that drastically improved his sleep. BUT--once we got his feeding schedule figured out about halfway through the month (including adding an afternoon snack in lieu of a late-afternoon nap), his sleep hardcore improved. He will still sometimes take his longer nap in the morning, which complicates pickup after school (plus a short afternoon nap almost always means an over-tired and fussy boy by bedtime), but despite all my concerns and reservations we're managing to make a two-nap routine work (it also helps that Darrell is still working from home because there have definitely been days where I have left him sleeping to go pick up his brothers--might as well use the opportunities I've been given, right?)

New Stuff: Not a lot? We celebrated his first Halloween, but thanks to #covid that didn't really amount to anything except an impromptu family rainbow costume to go over to my parent's house so the older boys could get some candy (well, to clarify, it didn't amount to much for Matthew. We had fun activities planned for the older boys including an at-home scavenger hunt and pumpkin carving, but those didn't really amount to much for Matthew). Otherwise he's been gaining a lot more confidence in cruising around furniture and has even stood unassisted for short bursts of time, although he still seems perfectly content to crawl 90% of the time. And I alluded to it in the picture caption, but he cut his first tooth in early November, and although I swore the other bottom one was going to follow close behind it still hasn't quite made an appearance. It's been close though, and has seemed to bother him enough at times that we gave him his first dose of pain medicine in mid-November (truthfully, we haven't been intentionally avoid giving him medicine, but for the most part we've been able to keep him content without medication so we haven't bothered with it. Plus, I kind of think we're both a little bit more tolerant of the cuddles at times because we pretty well know that he'll be our last). I fully expect to be able to add the appearance of another tooth at his next update--and only time will tell what else will happen before then!