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My sweet baby boy fits solidly into size 2.  A toddler size.  It isn't even in the same section of the store!  Sometimes I have to roll up the pants and sometimes the sleeves are too short but he really is all boy and almost no baby.  

Frankly it makes me teary.  

Where have the last 10 months gone?

This was a big month for the little Manh.  A month during which he learned to love his caregiver Auntie Sumi.  He has always run to me grinning from ear to ear when she delivers him to school at the end of the day but now, most fo the time, he smiles when I  drop him off in the morning.  He has tried all kinds of new food like homemade dall and roti and I can tell he is loving every bite based on the state of his clothes each evening.  Don't get me wrong, he comes to the school at dismissal time sparkling clean and dressed for a winter storm (Auntie Sumi is a bit overprotective), but the evidence of his delicious lunch in is the laundry sack hanging on the stroller handle.  I'm jealous, I want that homemade Indian food for lunch every day too!

Little Manh's language development fascinates me.  He understands and follows instructions at a level equal to or better than many of the Junior Kindergarten students I have taught in the past, often 2 and 3 part instructions (and he ignores his name when I'm calling him much like the average JK does as well).  He only needs to be shown something once and he is mimicing and trying to do it himself soon thereafter.  

But talking?  Not so much.  He babbles a mile a minute, displays English-ish ennuciation and pronunciation and expression within complete paragraphs...none of which I understand.  Don't get me wrong...he knows exactly what he is saying and I pick up truck or cat or the famous meow, bus, tractor, or the famous meow.  I hear  "that?", "get it", "go get it", "I did", "do it", "look it", all common phrases.  But no real change in the number of words I understand.  For the time being I'm attributing this to a developing vocabulary in Gujarati, which I'm sure would sound like typical baby babble to me...I'm waiting for the day Auntie Sumi declares him a Gujarati child.  Apparently he follows Gujarati instructions easily already!

He has been a meow-ing maniac this month and is tottally obsessed with cats of all shapes and sizes.  Twice while I was rubbing his back at bedtime he began to meow and meowed himself off to sleep.  He chooses to have me read only story books containing a cat, carefully digging through the book shelf until he finds the purrrfect book.  He demands that we turn the correct corner on our walk so we pass Hippo's house (our favourite neighbourhood cat...we were formally introduced on Halloween eve).  The cat obsession does not overshawdow his love of all things animal (or truck for that matter) but it is certainly in the forefront.

And my boy can move.  Faster and faster with each passing day.  Up hills and down hills and through leaves and over curbs and up steps and down steps (occasionally onto his face...poor boo).  He has learned to climb down backwards this month and applies this rule about 50 percent of the time.  He also enjoys walking backwards or sideways for that matter and always dances by spinning in circles while clapping to the music.

November is a month of joy for Ben and I as we watch two families we love travel to bring home Ben's girlfriends.  Catherine, in China right this second, has sweet Hannah in her arms already and Auntie Julia and Uncle Danny (private blog) leave to meet Molly at Ben's orphanage in Hai Duong in one week.  Thinking of these journeys reduces me to tears in mere seconds and brings back precious memories.  I was peeking back through my own archives today to 10 months ago and I wonder where the time has gone.