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In just 5 more weeks our boy will be 1! Seems impossible, but everyday we see him grow and learn. His big accomplishment this week is saying "buh-bye" with the perfect waive of his chubby wrist at the perfect time of departure. He definitely gets what he is saying, and even Kevin melts a bit when Ewan shows off this new skill.

In all he says mama, daddy, coco, what, and bye bye. He also loves to look at pictures of our family, and when we say "where is Daddy?" He points right at K in the picture. He can identify daddy, mommy and the dogs, but those two are a little interchangeable at this point, and we don't blame him for that, their outfits always match. Yesterday when asked "where is mama?" He pointed and appeared to say "there", but further validation is required before we consider that his 6th word :)

This week's picture is of Ewan playing this morning as mama got ready for work, daddy had an early meeting so we were on our own! Trying to get Ewan to wave bye bye to the camera was impossible as he only does it if you are actually leaving!

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This week calls for 2 pictures...

Life can be messy --- work, family, friends, etc --- things can go awry.

But with time --- love, understanding, communication, possibly soap --- things come clean and work out.

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Ewan is starting to show his mischievous side. At 10 months they say babies can't understand discipline. It is hard to believe that when Ewan ponies up to the side table lamp, the electronics, or the fireplace tools (3 things he is constantly redirected from), looks at you, looks back at the forbidden item, starts shaking his head no, and then proceeds to play. If you interrupt him with a stern-ish no he looks at you with a cute "say what?" face and proceeds to shake his head no at you, and then returns to his evil. Things are starting to get real!

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I recently told my bestie that if  K & I decide to have a second child I want her to remind me how sweet 10 months is when I am stuck in the 4 week fog of newborn exhaustion. Ewan truly gets sweeter everyday. He is quite the babbler and now picks up phones to have chats and then puts the phone up to the ear of anyone near him. When we pick him up from school he is immediately distracted from what he is doing and crawls to us with the largest grin on his face. His favorite activities include "clap clap" clapping, rubbing daddy's Christmas beard (which has now turned in to a new look for 2013), petting/torturing Barley and Coco, cruising rapidly around all furniture, walking on his new walker toy, and crawling insanely fast! He can now no longer simply focus on being mobile, he typically has a toy in one or both hands as he travels, which can be quite precarious and entertaining.

Ewan still loves watching and playing with the bigger kids, and is quickly growing larger than all of the kids in his class (newborns) and even most of those in the next class up (12 - 24 months). The majority of the 12 month clothes have now been retired, and we are in to the 18 month inventory. Saying good bye to his sweet yellow corduroys and dinosaur pajamas was much harder than it should have been for this mama. So many mothers say it, and I have probably at some point in this blog said it myself, but I wish I could just bottle this up --- I want to remember always how sweet Ewan's giggles are during bath time, how we try to make sense of his babbles in the car, how he puts his head on our shoulders when he is getting tired, and how he smells in the morning (warm and sweet and drunk with sleep).

EP's official 10 month photo - taken January 9th, 2013

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There has been a lot of love in our house these days! Must be the merriness factor or the new year, but it seems to me we can't get enough of each other. And Coco, our typically most reluctant lover of Ewan, is even coming around. Happy 2013 from our family to yours!