The Pickle Jar in Poland: Matthew is 10 Months old!

That's right, our little Pickled Peaches is not so little any more! He turned 10 months old last Friday, August 7th, our first full day in the house. We had his orange chair back for pictures! We could not, however, find the poster board, so part of a moving box was an appropriate stand in for his sign.

This one is my favorite.

After a few shots, he was done! This is how he really wanted to be...standing!

At 10 months he is crawling, still a lot of Army crawling, but he crawled fully on hands and knees across the living room floor of our new house on the 1st. He switches back and forth and he is quite mobile!

First time making it more than a couple of "steps"
on hands and knees!

Look at what I did Mama! I was sitting right
there on the steps with him when he did this
behind my back!

He has 3 teeth and is working on at least 3 more that we can see just below the skin of his gums. Poor guy!

He loves to pull up. He thinks he is pretty hot stuff. Charles and I have found him in some funny (sometimes scary) places in the last few weeks, including on top of luggage, halfway up the staircase, and the bottom shelf of one of the end tables.

Found him on the luggage. Oh that face!

It's the only way to drink a bottle, really.

Watching Daddy and Emmy swim in the hotel pool.

See Charles' feet? That is where he stopped to pick Matthew up. Charles was in the dining room and turned his back and Matthew crawled out of the dining room and halfway up the stairs in like a minute. He's FAST!

He discovered the footstools are great walkers, they slide easily on the hardwood floors.

I just need to make a few calls...

He also likes to "help" unload the dishwasher, even if it is dirty...

He loves to eat. He will eat pretty much anything we offer him, and he is doing great feeding himself. He had not been very interested in feeding himself before we left the U.S., though he has enjoyed eating from the first day we gave him solid foods at 6 months old. Mostly he would pick up pieces of food and drop them on the floor, and then with his bark/grunt sound indicate he wanted food in his mouth NOW. So, when we moved here and were always eating in restaurants, not always with a high chair available, we just fed him out of convenience. Plus, this meant we did not worry about making unnecessary messes across Szczecin. Polish folks don't take their kids out to eat quite as often as Americans do. We do see children out, just not as many or as frequently as we do back home, so we did not need to attract any more attention.

First meal in the new house, sitting on the few chairs we had!

Thursday night for our first meal in the house, our friend Katie picked up pizza for us and the movers and brought it by. We set up a picnic of sorts in the living room and dragged in his newly unpacked high chair, plopped him in it with some bites of pizza and he went to town feeding himself. It is great! He's quite adept at it and Rags is happy to help out with whatever falls on the floor.

He has developed quite an affinity for yogurt. I have always though European yogurt was better anyways, so I can understand where he is coming from. At least one of us ate yogurt basically every morning in the hotel since it was on the buffet, so he started having a few bites. By the second week, he was doing his bark/grunt noise as soon as he saw the container hit the table. It is hilarious.

He also loves to drink ice water. Loves it! Which is funny since in Poland apparently they don't give children cold drinks, much less drinks with ice in them.

He is not saying much other than Dada and babbling. Sometimes we think he says Mama or Emmy or Ragsie, but who knows. He does have a big sister who talks for him and around him a LOT so maybe when she goes back to school and there is more Mama-Matthew time he will tell me more about what he is thinking.

He does not like getting dressed, particularly after bathtime. He loves taking a bath, just like Emmy always has, but take him out of the warm water and try to wrestle him into pajamas since he is now getting tired is really just a big annoyance to him and he lets you know.

He is still pretty much the happiest baby ever. Even when he is cranky, he is still 10 times happier than some non-cranky babies. We are very lucky to have this sweet boy in our lives! I cannot believe he is 10 months old already and one year is just around the corner!

He kept pulling up on the folding market basket I stored the toys in while we were in the hotel and it collapsed on him every time, yet he was undeterred!

No one can make him laugh like his sister can! He's waving his arms giggling at her.

Riding on the tram. We love public transportation!

He stole a piece of bread out of the bag I had out, getting ready to make a picnic lunch on the floor in the hotel. Mommy paid for leaving on the bed with crumbs all over her side of the bed!