The Not So Grumpy Baby

As the months go by James' personality becomes more and more apparent. 

For a long time, when he was tiny, and then when he was not quite as tiny, I joked that he was a grumpy baby, because his face upon seeing something he's interested in almost always becomes quite serious, and he ends up looking kind of grumpy.

The truth is that despite the "Grumpy Baby" pictures, he's a baby with a cheerful and incredibly laid back personality.

To capture a frown picture I have to catch him looking at something before he spots me, because the second we make eye contact the only picture I'm going to get will look like this:

Did I mention that Paul cut his hair?  Here's his new "big boy" haircut.

Still, even at ten months, James' personality is already shining through.

He can't crawl yet, but he's mastered pulling himself around the room with his arms, and he zooms from place to place.  Earlier this week Patch was sitting in front of one of James' favorite toys and I watched as James made his way over to his brother.
 
When he got to where Patch was sitting he screamed and waited for Patch to move.  Patch, of course, didn't even notice that he was there behind him, addressing his big brother with his angry baby talk and Patch went on playing with a couple of toy cars.  James belly crawled over a little closer and actually bit his brother on the side.

Thankfully James has all of four teeth (and the last two just came in, so I think he only had two when he bit Patch) and Patch glanced over and kept playing, still not quite getting how serious "Buddy" was about taking his spot, while I attempted to distract him with a different toy (and realized that James absolutely will not be distracted).

James' other interest has been climbing.  He can't stand on his own, but he has mastered pulling himself up onto things, like the trampoline, while I turn, completely shocked and realize what he's done.  Maggie must be giving him lesson when I'm not looking (and to be honest Maggie and James are pretty much inseparable since he is very obviously her favorite person in the whole, entire world).

He hasn't quite outgrown his floppiness though, especially in his lower body.

Today we went to his nine month well baby check (he's 10 1/2 months).  I'd filled out the ASQ beforehand and knew that we were still way behind on gross motor since he could only do 1 of the 6 things on the 9 month questionnaire.

We left with a referral to a neurologist, because of the hypotonia, hyper flexibility and especially because he's still dragging his right leg around and not using it.

The doctor was optimistic that he'll catch up with the help of PT, and so am I, but they have to eliminate other possibilities to make sure nothing else is going on, and so now we wait for the call for an appointment with the neurologist.

Now to get a little sleep before he wakes up and tries to convince me that it's already morning!