Ten-month (and a bit) progress report

I keep thinking about things I should post here, and then they slip my mind or time passes, and I end up thinking that a post covering everything would be far too long. So here's a few highlights off the top of my head...

• Food
  Since he's been on solids, virtually all his food has been made by us (okay: mostly Rachael), almost exclusively from one of Annabel Karmel's recipe books. We tend to give him some finger food (bread, rusk) and spoon the rest in ourselves. Just recently he's started to push our hands away even though he's hungry; he wants to feed himself rather than be fed like a baby. We've started giving him a spoon and are keeping a very close eye on what's going on. Things are starting to get messy!
  
  
• Movement
  He's now developed a really good proper crawl, on hands and knees. At first he'd get up on his hands and knees but drop to elbows and tummy to get anywhere, but now he's really going for it. He's been pulling himself up to his feet for a while, and now cruises around the furniture fairly well, although our sofa arms are too high for him to get past so he gets a bit stuck. We bought him a "Toddle Truck" - one of those old-fashioned trays full of building blocks with wheels and a handle - thinking he'd play with the bricks for now and use it to walk later. On day one he was happy walking along with it while we held it (to stop it rolling away too quickly), but the next day he pulled himself up on it and promptly walked across the room without any help at all. And, boy, did he look pleased with himself! He's also - once only - stood entirely unsupported for about 20-30 seconds; We really couldn't believe our eyes.
  
  
• Sleep
  Now here's an area where we really needed to see some progress, so I'm very pleased to say we're beginning to. Rachael had been keeping records of every time he woke and for how long, to see if we could identify a pattern. Sure enough, we decided much of his waking was not out of discomfort, hunger, wind, teeth, or anything else we could think of, so it must have been simply habitual. So we changed our strategy again (settle him in the cot and only pick him up if absolutely necessary) and after a fairly short time the wakes have become shorter and now less frequent. We've even had a few "through the nights" which is fantastic.
  
  
• Other physical development
  He has two teeth, and still very little hair. Everyone tells us how beautiful he is, and we agree with them. The potty has been an astonishing success: we does a wee in it most days, and has even done a poo in it several times. We're keeping quiet about that in case it sounds too boastful! And today he had an eye test because we thought we'd seen a bit of a squint in one eye, but he passed with flying colours, picking out faint shapes on the paper that usually defeat older babies. The last one I couldn't see without my glasses!

I'm sure there is much more to tell, but I started by saying I didn't want the post to be too long, so I shall stop here.