What Gavin is doing today at 10.5 months

I say what he is doing "today" at 10.5 months because each day is something new! You experienced parents are saying, "Duh!" but as a newbie with only his days as a tiny baby as a reference (when the changes were much more slow), I'm pretty amazed.

• Saying "Daddy," not da or dada, and meaning Josh. (He says "Ma" and "Mama" too, sometimes when he's crawling toward something he knows he's not allowed to have...Ha ha...a request for boundaries? That's how I've been treating it.)
• Giving open mouth baby kisses. (He's been doing this for a while, but I love it, so I have to mention it.)
• Imitating very accurately! Today he imitated "love you" and mommy making a quacking sound (like waa, waa). Then he tried to imitate me snapping for Millie by putting his forefinger and thumb together and pressing. He did this while looking at Millie, and after a while when nothing happened, he looked down at his hand like, "This should be working." This brings me to my next one...
• Calling for, or directing us to call for, Millie -- our 12-year-old beagle/border collie mix who is almost deaf (a recent development). He'll clap and say "Dawh." Last week, we were both calling her while he was standing on my lap. I was looking toward the room she was in across the house and calling, and he was clapping for her like I sometimes do. Knowing that she is nearly deaf and not wanting to yell in Gavin's ear, I gave up and turned back to Gavin and started talking to him. Then Gavin turned my head back in the direction I had been calling and kept doing that until I finally called loud enough and she came. Hilarious!
• Pulling up onto his knees, and then leaning on the object doing a sort of downward facing dog yoga pose. I think he would get all the way up if he wouldn't pick such short objects to hold onto.
• Signing the two signs we've really worked on and transferring their meaning to other situations! He only signs "all done" on rare occasions (like the time I fed him apricot muesli -- the signing and the look on his face were emphatic though prior to that he had been acting starving...ha ha...we moved on to something else). He signs "more" a lot. Lately the sign has graduated from just clapping with two open hands to one fist and one open hand coming together, so he's getting closer. The really cool thing is that, even though we've only worked on it referring to food, today he signed it when he wanted Millie to come back and sit by his highchair. Like "More Millie." He still looks bewildered when I do please and thank you. I think he'll actually say it before he learns the sign. He's tried imitating me saying "please" a couple times.
• I can't believe it took me so long to think of this one because it's precious. He says "bah, bah" when he waves bye bye now, as of a few days ago. It's a really bright "ah" but not quite the long "I" sound. It makes me smile just thinking about those cute little lips pursing up for the "bah bah!"
• After weeks of him looking at me like I was trying to poison him whenever I would give him anything with texture, he is now eating table food like a champ. He likes salmon, avocado, kiwi, turkey (we celebrated thanksgiving early), asparagus and of course all the normal things like bananas and sweet potatoes. He is still not feeding himself. Sometimes the food ends up in his fist, and he just can't get it from there to his mouth. When he does get it in a nice pincer grasp, he usually looks at it like, "Cool," and then drops it over the tray onto the floor and opens for me to feed him a bite. Not in defiance. Just kind of like, "Okay, that was cool. I did it. Next."
• He loves coming shopping for clothes with mommy! Those of  you who know me might think I'm exaggerating just because I love to shop, but it's true! It started when we went through some racks that were too close together and all of the clothes brushed his arms. He would get one in each hand when I would slow down and smile and laugh like he had just one a prize! Sometimes I forget, and when we go into a clothing store and he starts laughing and getting excited, I'm thinking, "What's so funny?" Then I realize, he sees the clothes racks.
• He thinks it's so fun to bat a ball around and chase it while he's crawling. Or a clean baby food lid. Or a car. Or a book. Or pretty much anything. He loves the chase!