Month 10

Dear Ramon,

Happy 10 months! Wow! Your birthday is fast approaching and I've begun checking the internet on things we could do on your party. The options are overwhelming! I'm seriously torn between organizing the thing myself, like I did with your two Ates, or hiring a party planner to do everything for me. I'm still thinking about it. Let's hope I don't think too long. ;-) In the meantime, I'm enjoying you and how well you're growing.



You've grown up to be really precocious. You seem curious about everything around you. Toys and non-toys alike, get carefully examined, turned over many times in your hands and then stuffed in your mouth for a taste. And you love toys. You see your play pen, full of toys, and would dive from my arms to go inside. I can even leave you there for up to half an hour, where you will quietly play with the many colorful things inside, turning them this way and that, testing how they "work". One toy you like best of all, is a tower of rings. I stack them in order, according to size, and when you see them all stacked up, you attack it ferociously and won't rest until they're all scattered. It's amazing! Like reverse OCD. The mere sight of the thing all stacked and neat compels you to destroy it. Sometimes you even look at me as if to say, Mom! I fixed it already! Stop putting it together! Obviously that just makes me want to keep stacking the rings. So I can watch you take them apart.



I like to put your toys away from you so that you have to scramble towards your them. You crawl really really fast! Your yaya likes to put you in the exersaucer or just carry you around. But I like to put you on the floor, or if you had just bathed, on the bed, and let you go around wherever you like. Once you even crawled after me out of the room! You like crawling to your Daddy, especially when he's standing because your he can't resist your pleading eyes, he will immediately carry you. You like crawling all over your sisters too! Especially when they're playing with the iPad. But even if they're not, bothering them is one of your favorite things to do. And they love it even when they're getting annoyed. I can foresee a long future of you bothering your sisters. I'm really excited to see how creative you get at doing that.



This past month, you also learned to pull yourself up to stand. Hooray! You love to climb the back rest of the couch, your crib, our bed's headboard, and me! Anything you can grab to pull yourself up to stand, you love! And you seem so proud when you succeed too! Like you can tell you're the best baby in the world. Which you are! My goodness, Ramon, next you'll be walking and then running, and then driving away in the car Daddy says he will give you. Oops! Did I say that Daddy will give you a car? Maybe he didn't say that. Hehe. Just, don't consider it a promise. Yet. Make sure you always have high grades and behave well. Then, after you've proven that you can drive well, and promising to follow all traffic rules, then MAYBE you can have a car.



You are such a happy baby, you are a delight to bring around. But lately, perhaps because it's a phase in your age, you're starting to recognize that some people are strangers. You used to just smile at everyone. Now, when we bring you to Katipunan or St. Ignatius, you tend to frown at people and stare at them as if wondering, "who are you?" You don't go with just anyone anymore. Depending on your mood, you would even cry if anyone you don't know well takes you away from me. Last Sunday you didn't want to go with Lolo Dan. Which made us all sad. But I can't blame you because you haven't seen them in three weeks, since they went on vacation in Australia. But never mind, we will spend the coming weeks getting to know your Lolo again.



Even if you're nangingilala, you're still a wonderfully charming little baby boy, full of life and likot. Last Sunday we went to Ate Lia and Ate Desi's family day, and even if you were too little to participate, you still enjoyed yourself in the park, especially when your Yaya let you practice "walking" while she held you under your arms. You have a trick we love to make you do, it's called Pogi Mata which is your version of beautiful eyes. Because Daddy didn't want you to learn "beautiful eyes" and "blink blink blink" did not catch on, the helpers banded together to teach you Pogi Mata and this is you, doing it:



You are the cutie-est wonderfulest baby in the world and I love being able to play with you everyday. Even if you still constantly wake me up in the middle of the night, whenever you hug and cuddle up to me in your sleep, it makes me feel so loved that the sleeplessness seems worth it. I look at you and feel so lucky and blessed to have you as a son, that I have the privilege and the honor to form you into a great man. You inspire me to be the best mom and best person I can be. You make us want to change our country and the world into a better place for you to grow up in.

I love you so much, Ramon. I love you forever.


Love, Mommy