I wrote this right after Jake turned 10 months old. I’m publishing this just before he turns 11 months. I really need to do better at being timely. 🙂

This boy of mine is such a joy, so sweet and just too cute for his own good. He turned 10 months last Sunday. He’s can crawl on his knees, but prefers to army crawl. When he pulls himself up to his knees and crawl Waldo says he looks like a robot. Jake can pull himself up on just about any surface and do it quickly. He cruises around the furniture, he will occasionally sign the correct sign for nurse, but most of the time he does this arm shake that means a cross between nurse and Mom. I say that he’s signed more a few times and eat a number of times, Waldo thinks I’m being really hopeful. And even more hopeful when I swear Jake says Love you after he kisses me, which he does all the time and it’s the best thing ever. I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of things he can do, but those are the most often so they stick in my head.

He was born with such thick dark hair and everyone said it was going to fall out and by about 3 months he still had it so we were like, bam our kids different and he’s keeping all of that beautiful hair. Que male patter baldness. Now’s it’s grown back, but it’s very light. When he’s in normal light it’s very white, but it can look very red or brown depending on the light. I can’t wait to see what it ends up. His eyes are still very blue and I love them. I really hope they stay blue, but I won’t be disappointed if he’s got hazel eyes like Lily and Mark.

Lily is the best big sister since well me. 🙂 She’ll do anything for Jake, except call him by his name. He’s brother or Buddy, I can’t even trick her into saying his name. Silly girl. Jake adores her. It’s so sweet to see them together. For the longest time Lil was the only one who could get him to laugh. Now we all can, but she can still do it the easiest.

Most people will tell you when you are pregnant with your second that you need to prepare because they won’t be anything like what you already have. Well, that’s just not the case for us. Jake is SO MUCH like Lil was when she was a baby. He’s just as shy as she was, he really doesn’t want anyone holding him except me or Mark. He wants to be held almost constantly. We went out to dinner the other day and I had to use the changing table in the restroom for the first time, he started screaming the second I put him on it, just like Lil did. He gained slowly just like she did and I’ll get to that in one second. He’s as bad of a sleeper as she was if not worse and that’s saying something.

Sleep: Ah how I miss it. I’m so tired all the time. His sleep got so bad that I started tracking it on a note pad a few months ago. I now have 3 full little yellow note pads with his Up and Down times all over it. I’ve tried everything, routine, massage, sound machine, keeping him up longer after he shows he tired, putting him to bed the second he shows he’s tired, bath, some essential oils, co-sleeping and bed sharing (he has a pack and play in our room that he takes naps in),swaddling, feeding him solids right before or a few oz of formula to top him off. The only thing I don’t do is cry it out. None of it matters. I’ll put him down for a nap and then anywhere from 1 minute to an average of 25 minutes later he’ll be up. Sometimes I can get him back to sleep, sometimes that power nap is all he needed. Occasionally he will sleep for an hour, it’s very rare, but once or twice he’s slept closer to two.

At night time I nurse him to sleep and put him down and that same 1 to 25, but sometimes 45 minutes later he wakes up and I nurse him down again. Repeat till we go to bed. After we are in bed I’ll bring him to our bed once he wakes up. Then depending on the night he will snuggle next to me and we will sleep with some dream feeds all night long, but most nights he will wake up and I have to either sit up on the bed with him nursing back to sleep or way more often than I’d like we have to come out to the living room because he’s too away and will wake Mark. On average once we go to the living room we reswaddle and sit on my ball chair and he nurses back to sleep and I’m back in bed in an hour, almost on the dot most nights. Occasionally it’s a little less and a few times it’s been more like two hours. Kill me. Take last night: 4-5 Lily and Mark took a walk with Jake in his new to us stroller and when they got home he was tired, but I was making soup and couldn’t stop. At around 7 he was melting down and ready for bed. Between 7:30 and 9:30 he had to be put back to sleep twice. Once we got in bed he woke pretty soon and I brought him into our bed. He was fussy, but I got him back to sleep, around 1 he was really fussy again so I sat up and got him back to sleep and down by around 1:35. At 4:20 he was wide awake. We went to the living room and were back in bed around 5:20. He was awake again at 6. It was a very long day for me. It’s such a good thing that he’s cute and normally very happy and I love him lots. This sleep thing is just like Lily, although he may be a bit worse with the getting ups. At least I have lots of practice and I know it won’t last forever.