Wife hat, Mom hat.: Ten Months

It’s that time again. Belle turned ten months yesterday. Before I know it, she’ll be turning one, starting kindergarten, and going to prom. Okay, maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but this is all just going to fast {most of it anyway- the sick days, those seem to go soooooooo slooooooow, but you allow me to cuddle you, so I won’t complain.}

Dear Baby Girl,

You are such a sweetie—you’re a smiley, happy, energetic little thing. As always, you catch the attention of strangers every time we go out. When we do go out, it often has to be a quick trip through the store, as you are like Houdini squirming out of the seatbelt strap in the cart. Your personality is totally shining through in everything that you do! You’re so expressive and since you’re happy most of the time, you are just so fun to be around! You’re determined and you work to get your hands on whatever is catching your eye and the times when you’re having trouble figuring something out or can’t quite reach something—you definitely let us know. You’re a social little person and prefer to “play” only when someone is right there with you.

This spot in the kitchen has become “your” spot! You love any sort of box/drawer/bucket you can take things out of and put back in!

You had your first Thanksgiving, your first vacation/roadtrip too, this month. Probably you’re last roadtrip for quite awhile too. On your behalf, you were sick. But, you hardly slept. At all. And you just weren’t your happy little self so I took you to the doctor as soon as we got back, but as I expected, it was just a little bug. You got over it after another day or two and finally went back to your normal 11 hour night, and 3ish hours of naps during the day.

You’re still sporting around two teeth. We expected you to have a few more by now—you have been gnawing on things for weeks. But unfortunately, they are taking a while to break through. Even without many teeth, you still like to chomp your food as if you had teeth and it’s pretty cute to watch.

Gnawing on anything/everything. Right now it’s the strainer. But a few minutes from this pic, I found you chewing on the wooden drawer itself.

Speaking of food, you’re still adamant about feeding yourself. I have a cabinet full of unused baby food because you just won’t eat anything I try to feed you. You are eating all of the food we eat plus a four or five bottles a day. You love to find Jackson’s sippy cups and try to drink from them, so I have purchased ones for you. But you’re not very interested. You’re getting a different kind for Christmas, so hopefully you’ll give them a try!

You’re still wearing size 3 diapers and your clothes are anywhere from 6-12 month is size. You’re wearing a size 3 shoe and you look like such a big girl with them on!

You have become a more confident all-fours crawler. And you are fast. Especially when you hear Daddy coming in the door after work. No matter where you are in the house, you will make your way to him within seconds. You love it when Jackson plays crawling games with you—at home or even at the doctor’s office. You have been pulling yourself up for several weeks now and you’ve recently started cruising around the furniture. You can actually stand by yourself for a few seconds… until you realize you are standing by yourself and then you plop right down on the floor. When we try to get you to take a few steps, you often get heavy-bottom-syndrome as you would just rather sit down and then crawl to your destination.

As with most babies your age, you’ve begun experiencing separation anxiety this month. It hit practically overnight when just one day out of the blue you woke up screaming bloody murder, several times back to back. It took about three days to realize that it was simply your awareness that you were alone and that you weren’t dying. You really had me worried—boy can you scream! After a few {short} cry-it-out sessions, you were back to your normal sleeping/waking up routine. However, you often like to play the I’m-perfectly-happy-in-your-arms-but-I-will-scream-once-my-feet-touch-the-ground game, which goes along with the I-want-you-to-hold-me-but-I-cannot-hold-still-so-you-will-just-be-my-playground game. That is truly exhausting, but you’re slowly starting to chill out a little about me not holding you.

You mimic lots of our sounds. You can say Mama, Dada {also, hi dad}, and uh oh. You like to click your tongue and give kisses. Ohmigoodness, I just love me some of your kisses. There are a few different ones. First, there is the leaning of your forehead to my lips—you want me to kiss you. Second, you will make the muah sound while leaning in to kiss my cheek. And lastly, and this started just the other day and it is SO cute—you pucker up your little lips when I say, “can I have some kisses”. Sometimes you’re close and will lean in, but if you’re playing, you just look at me and give me a long-distance-kiss and then go back to your toys. Even just seeing this picture on my computer makes me want to lean in and give her a kiss!! I just can’t get enough.

{every time she does this, I think of the kid, Duck-Face, from Full House!}