The Zorio Family: Carter is TEN MONTHS!

Impossible to believe, but true- our sweet Carter is TEN MONTHS old today! The past month has been a very busy one for Carter. He's a faster crawler than ever before! Although he still crawls on his tummy army style about 75% of the time, this month he managed to do some crawling on all fours. When he's really trying to move though, he knows he is much faster in his perfected army crawl and drops from his knees to his belly and moves, moves, moves! He is SO fast! It's unbelievable! He has also started doing some serious cruising. He loves to cruise the sofa, tables, train table, and even along the cabinets just keeping his hands on the outside of the cabinets for balance. At this rate, I think he will be running by his first birthday. :) As he has become more active he has become less content to be in the Johnny Jumper, Exersaucer, and Walker much to my dismay. I miss being able to put him somewhere semi-stationary that he would be happy.
I think the main reason that he's so active and moves so much is because he tries to stay caught up with big brother. Speaking of brother-now that Carter is more active than ever, there have been some sibling disputes in the playroom. :) Carter wants to be right where Dawson is, playing with what Dawson has, talking (babbling) when Dawson talks, and so on. Dawson attempts to be as patient with him as a three year old can be, but to be honest, a lot of times this does end in one of the two boys upset. It really is sweet though, how interested Carter is in his brother. If Dawson's talking, Carter just starts babbling over him, Dawson gets louder, then Carter does too! We are convinced that Carter is the loudest member of our family because he's always yelling. He's happy, just yelling. The other day Dawson took something from Carter, so Carter took off after him crawling and yelling, after a minute of unsuccessfully trying to catch his brother, Carter just started yelling, "MA MA MA MA!" Is this Carter's first time tattling? :)
Carter is so aware of everything that is going on around him. Lately this is making food very difficult. As far as we know, he is still allergic to milk so he is very limited on what he can eat. He looks at brother's plate and yells and reaches for the things on it meanwhile I feed him veggies, meat, fruit, and dairy free crackers. He has realized that he's not getting EVERYTHING, and he's not too happy about it. The good news, though, is that he's still an excellent eater. We have perfected dairy free pancakes, and he eats between one and one and a half big cakes. He still likes his oatmeal for breakfast and bedtime snack and meats, veggies, and fruits for lunch and dinner. He nurses about 5 times a day still too. He's started having little snacks of dairy free crackers, Cheerios, and fruit too. If anyone in the house is eating or having a snack, he thinks he should be eating too! I guess it takes a lot of food to fuel all the moving he does!
Carter is still on the same nap schedule, and he has still been getting up just two times a night to eat.
In addition to Ma Ma, Da Da, Bye Bye Bye, and Bu Bu (brother), Carter has also started saying BO (boat) when pointing to the sailboats in his room. He's really proud of this and wants to do it each time we're in his room. When you ask, "Where are the lights?" he will now point up to the lights in each room and smile. In addition to this communication, he's still signing "more," and he's also started signing "all done." We have shown him the sign for "changed" when he's getting his diaper changed, and he tries this but he has yet to perfect it. We are also working on the sign for cup, but at this point he finds it easier to yell when he wants his cup than take time to make the sign. :)
Carter is still a very happy boy, and he's the happiest crawling or cruising around the playroom with big brother's big kid toys. Carter also LOVES bath time. He seems to know that big brother does not like to be splashed, and so he makes sure to do this all the time. He's so wild in the tub, but he has so much fun splashing around. Carter doesn't mind at all when his entire face including his eyes and noes are soaked, he just smiles. One final thing we love that Carter is doing more and more at this age is dancing. If there is music playing anywhere, Carter hears it, stops what he is doing, and sways side to side! So cute!
We love Carter so much, and we can't believe how quickly the past ten months have passed!!
On to the pictures....