10 months.

Hooray!

Will went from "reading" to focusing intently on grabbing the paper and eating it.

Do we love the spoon in the mouth look? Oh yes we do 'cause it means that our little man is into eating, which hasn't always been the case :-) At 10 months, he is more than eager to feed himself, especially YoBaby yogurt, his fave.

Love this face. Only took me 20 pictures to finally catch it :-).

We are spending lots of time these days cheering on Daddy's soccer team and going for long walks. Don't worry: baby sunscreen has become my new best friend.

Here we are eating our appetizer of Cheerios and strawberries. He is such a clean eater!

I am so proud.

Folks, it got a lot messier than even this. Baths are now a favorite nightly activity, both because it is so hot and sticky here and because Will has food all over him by day's end.

Still haven't quite figured out crawling but we've got the flailing arms and legs move down pat.

Love.

That gaze gets me every time.

We love eating, yes we do, we love eating, how 'bout you?

This is how we roll at dinner time. He is so frickin' cute that sometimes I do a little song and dance routine for him to make him laugh. He pounds the spoon and giggles away.

I didn't know I could fall in love with him any more but I think I am...

I asked him a philosophical question here.

He's thinking.

Louisville Slugger shirt!

It's been a long but great day.

A few more things about Will at 10 months:

1.) He loves to walk when we hold both of his hands. He wants to practice all the time.

2.) He LOVES his Sandra Boynton "Doggies" book. For some reason, "Woof!" is the funniest word in the English language to him.

3.) Church has become interesting. We drop him off in the nursery for Sunday School, but we really want to share worship with him, so we bring him with us to the service. The only thing is that church begins smack in the middle of his usual nap time, so he is increasingly tired and thus distracted and wiggly during the service. Thankfully the people in front of us and behind us today were super loving and understanding, but Clay and I aren't quite sure how to navigate this in the future. Selfishly we don't want to put him in the nursery the whole time because a.) he loves all the music and beauty of the service, and b.) we are away from him 5 out of 7 mornings a week. We don't want to drop him off with other people on the weekends! We want to be with him!

4.) He loves Cheerios.

5.) He continues to think Camden is both sweet and funny. They are so good to each other.

6.) He is saying "dada" all the time--and "mama" sometimes. But most of the time it is "baba"

7.) He continues to love the Johnny Jump-up.

8.) He is such a great napper. He loves sleeping. He hardly ever cries when we put him down--he just rolls on this side, faces the wall, and is down for the count. He slept until 8:30 both mornings this weekend, God love him.

We are already looking forward to his first birthday party, which will sadly also be our going away party. We can't wait to show our love and gratitude to our Chattanooga family. And I am pumped to make a cake. I am not sure what it will look like yet, but I am pumped to make it :).

rest. relax. rejoice.

High Five. We went on a rockin' vacation.

If we think about it for too long, we get really happy because it was so fun and really sad because it is over!

Last week we went to Palm Coast with my wonderful parents. And Mr. Turtle.

Can't forget Mr. Turtle.

Will may have been loved on a little...

...or a LOT :-)

Seeing the ocean from the viewpoint of a child is mesmerizing.

He stared at the magnitude of it, and I stared at the magnitude of him.

It never gets old. I simply can't stop staring at him. He is so fun!

What is this sand stuff?

This is one of the many pictures that confirm that Will looks just like Clay.

People can't get over it. I can't get over it.

He looked like Clay as a baby and now he looks even MORE like Clay.

How is he already this big? Oh my word!

He really is our little man now!

Family shot on the beach. Will wasn't interested.

Love this.

Trying out the (cold) water for the first time.

Mimi found Will this awesome floatation/canopy. He LOVED it. Can you tell we got lots of pictures of Will and Mr. Turtle? Can you tell we got lots of pictures in general? Dude, our poor second child is going to wonder what happened. There is no way we can keep this up!

Sweet.

Mom and Dad also brought adorable Max and Maggie down to the beach.

Riding off into the sunset.

Will with his awesome Mimi and Poppy.

We had such a wonderful week. Thanks to my generous, thoughtful parents, Clay and I were able to instantly relax, have fun with our dear family, and even go on a date (admittedly something we don't do nearly as often as we should). Will loved the water, loved the long walks, and especially loved all of the quality time he got with his grandparents. This trip was the perfect vacation at the perfect time with perfect weather and perfect company. We will treasure the memories forever!

Now we are back into the crazy schedule that is our teaching life. While I love love love teaching and love my job, I have to confess that spring break got me more and more excited to focus on Will without having the stress of planning and grading and writing comments. Clay and I have said on multiple occasions, "We just can't keep this up forever." Our daily life is exhausting. That's why we find ourselves looking forward to a change of pace for a year. Sure, we will be living on rice and beans and will be far from our dear family and friends, but there is a freedom in knowing that we won't be just trying to "get through" like we often feel this year. I find myself plagued by the knowledge that I am not the colleague nor the teacher nor the wife nor the friend nor the daughter nor the sister I want to be. There just isn't the time--and if there is time, there just isn't the energy. I pray that shifting my focus a bit will be energizing and will help me discover what is really important. I know I can't do everything, and I especially know I can't do everything at the same time, but I do feel like God is calling us to something different.

So now my job is to simplify our stuff. I started today by taking a whole load of clothing and accessories to a women's consignment sale this week.

My job is to finish teaching well at my school.

My job is to show my colleagues how much I admire, support, and cherish them.

My job is to love on my husband and my son.

Next year only one of the above jobs will exist. And I am starting to be okay with that.

break.

It's been crazy around here. Crazy good, crazy busy, crazy crazy. Turning life as you know it upside down within a matter of five days will do that to you. But at least I took pictures!

What oh what have we been up to?

1. Our sweet, wonderful, AMAZINGLY intuitive moms came in town the week after we decided we were moving to New York. Thank. The. Lord. Our minds were fried and we needed help. Carla wanted a week to visit her own grandkids, so Kay came in town Sunday-Wednesday to watch Will--and let's be honest, take care of us too. She cooked red beans and rice, shrimp fajitas, and gumbo for us. Wow. We are so spoiled. But most importantly, Will got to spend more time with his Gramma. We continue to thank God for her visit, for her love, and for the effortless way she understood the demands of our jobs and supported us.

My incredible mother came in town Wednesday-Saturday to do exactly the same thing, Mimi-style. She brought Max (above) and Maggie with her, so all three dogs had the best time together. And Will, who thinks dogs are hilarious, couldn't get enough of all the four-legged creatures roaming around. Like Kay, Mom just intuited what we needed logistically and emotionally and provided us with so much joy. She also texted me pictures from Will throughout the day--gotta love that. We enjoyed fun outings to Greenlife, GPS, and Costco while she was here--and of course went on lots of walks!

Mama, thank you so much for coming and loving on all three (four including Camden!) of us!

2. Will turned 9 mos. old! My oh my where does the time go? It blows my mind that Will is as old as the length of my pregnancy. I couldn't help but think about labor and delivery on his exact 9 month birthday (March 10). What an exciting yet scary day that was for us. I look at him today and thank God over and over again that he is the healthy and vibrant and happy little man that he is.

I took him to see Dr. Dodd last week for his checkup, and she said he looks super healthy. Hooray! No shots at the 9 month checkup, but he did get his finger pricked for an iron test (which he passed--phew!). He weighs 22 lbs, 6 oz (80th percentile), he is 30.5 in. in height (97th percentile), and his head circumference is 18.75 (95th percentile).

He is also eating really well now. It took us a little while to like "solid" (why do people call this mashed, pureed food "solid"?) foods, but I think we are now headed in the right direction. YoBaby yogurt was the turning point for us--he loved it. Especially the vanilla kind. He may look like his daddy, but he already eats like his mama :-).

Love that face!

Taking a break from pushing up and rolling over. Snuggling with Daddy is always a good call.

Here we are post-church one day.

3. And then Blaire arrived! How lucky are WE?? My dear, dear friend and UVA roomie has loved on Will from the start. So when she offered to spend the first weekend of her spring break with US, we jumped at the opportunity. In her characteristically selfless and loving way, she made the effort to fly down here from New Jersey (where she is, ahem, a professor at Kean University--dang, she is SMART) and smother Will with hugs and laughter. It felt like home to have her here. We had so much fun playing on the swingset, going for long walks, having a picnic in the park, eating at Tony's, and seeing The King's Speech (so good!). Her visit was 48 hours of comfort and friendship. We love you, Blaires. Thank you for coming all this way to be with us.

Will loved the swing.

4.Will is super close to crawling, but he hasn't quite gotten the hang of using his legs yet. Instead, he pushes up on his hands (see above)

...then kicks his legs and waves his arms frantically while on his belly...

...and then pushes up again. He's got the push-up motion down.

Crawling? Not so much.

Family Picture!

We love Blaire!

5. We figured out what we are doing this summer. I am going to be on the faculty and we will be living here.

6. I got a job for next year while we are in NYC! I will be teaching online here.

7. I collected and graded 58 research papers.

8. I decided that I am really grateful to not have to grade 58 research papers next year.

9. I taught The Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World at the same time. The tragic events in Japan happened on the day I finished teaching each of them. My classes definitely had some probing, interesting discussions that day.

10. As of 3 pm today, I am officially on Spring Break. Hallelujah. This past month has been a sprint and a marathon at the same time. We're pretty exhausted. A week on the beach with my parents sounds heavenly. Sleeping in past 6 sounds blissful. Reading for fun sounds amazing. And simply being with family without the stress of work or future plans? Priceless.