You are TEN MONTHS OLD!! Into the double digits, and only two months away from the big birthday! You’ve been growing out of your clothes left and right and it is so sad for me to put those teeny onesies away. But, you are also doing new awesome and exciting things every day, and that is so amazing to watch. I think the best thing in the world right now for me and your Daddy is watching you learn. Especially when we can be the ones to teach you.
The past two months have been filled with your personality busting out of you in the form of baby belly laughs and snorts (wonder where you get that from??). You are happy 99% of the time. You love trying to meet new people by smiling and batting your eyelashes at them until they come up to speak to you. And they always do. Good thing I’m not an introvert, because we meet new people EVERYWHERE we go. It seems like I have to take you out of church every Sunday because you are so excited to be there you just have to try to talk (or YELL) at everyone around us. Yes, God IS good baby, but we can’t belly laugh during the prayer :-)
We’ve still been dealing with teething (working on #9 and #10), which means Mama and Daddy don’t get very much sleep. When I’m too exhausted to do the responsible thing and keep up with our “sleep training” (which means always putting you back down in your crib), I take you into bed with me and Daddy. Even though you take up waaaaaay more room than a 17 pound person should, and I have to always sleep on my right side making my arm go numb, it could quite possibly be my favorite time we spend together. You are so snuggly (you get that from me). You love to put your head on my pillow and scoot your little bottom back as tight as you can against me. Sometimes you are a restless sleeper and you toss yourself around until you find another comfortable position. This can mean half of your body on your Daddy’s head with your booty in the air. Even though he’s the crankiest person I know when anyone wakes him up, he loves it when you do. If you happen to wake up before I do, you grab my face with your pudgy little hands and plant a kiss right on me. I die from the cuteness.
And now…some facts about YOU:
- You are still in size 3 diapers, but I can no longer say they are big on you. We’re trying out the Target brand ones again (the last time we did was a disaster, but that was before solid food poos).
- You are wearing all kinds of sizes these days. I would officially say you are in 12-18 months, even though they are really big on you. I feel a growth spurt coming. You also have zero cold weather outfits, minus the fleece camo pants we bought for Trunk or Treat (we were the redneck trunk).
- Like we already discussed, you have 8 teeth, and are now working on your top “canine” teeth. I’m hoping they bust through soon with minimal discomfort for you. I hate giving you Motrin regularly (you know I don’t like medicine period), and our trusty teething tablets were recalled (seriously…why are all of the baby medicines turning out to be unsafe?????), so we’re trying to do the frozen teething ring thing for pain relief. Chewing on Sophie helps too.
- You were a pink fairy for your first Halloween . I think the highlight for you was chewing on your magic wand. No candy this year! We were also rednecks at Trunk or Treat at church. For that segment, you were just in your diaper. Your Daddy was in jorts and a mullet wig with a tattoo that said “Mulets for Jesus”. I know this will be horrifying to you in your teenage years, but it was so worth it. It. Was. Hilarious.
- You took your first steps last week! Of course we didn’t get a picture or video of the very first one, but I did catch a quick clip a few tries later. Your record so far is seven steps and that was, of course, to your Daddy. When you’re around other little ones that are walking, you look at them like you are SO jealous. You almost took off on your own at Life Group Sunday night. At the last minute you decided crawling would be the quicker choice. Maybe next week.
- You still suck your thumb when you are tired or hungry. I’m starting to brainstorm on how to break the habit. I want to break it before your first birthday, but I’m not going to push it if you’re not ready. Although, with the cold weather, your thumbs are starting to chap right where you suck on them. I might have to get you to quit just so they can heal!
- You are finally getting more hair and I think it is safe to say, it is BLONDE. Your Nana is so relieved. I can’t wait for it to grow just a little more so we can do pigtails!! I, however, dyed my hair brown. Don’t worry, it’s just for the winter. I’ll be back to blonde just like you by summertime.
- FOOD. You love food. You still eat everything we put in front of you. You definitely have preferences when we give you multiple choices, but if I were to just give you brussels sprouts, you would gobble those suckers up like no big deal. We still do purees in the morning (your “cereal”) and whenever we travel, just because they’re easy. When we’re at home you have small pieces of fruits, veggies, beans, or pasta. You have definitely mastered feeding yourself (and Stella too sometimes…you try to sneak pieces to her every so often). I can say your favorite veggie is sweet potato and your favorite fruit is probably applesauce. However, you LOVE garbanzo beans. You can’t shove those in your face fast enough. I think it’s hereditary because I eat hummus every day for lunch. You have also mastered drinking from a straw. You have straw sippy cups for on-the-go, but when we’re at a restaurant you prefer to share my water. Such a big girl.
- Your favorite toys are your books. You love being read to, but you also like flipping through the books yourself. I’ll peek in at you when you’re in your room and there you are in the middle of ALL your books, quietly flipping the pages pretending to read them. This makes me smile. You also love pushing your shopping cart and rolling your plush soccer ball to Stella. When we throw the ball to you and it hits you, you belly laugh. Every time.
- Your bedtime routine starts with bath right after dinner (because you are a MESSY girl). I still wash you in the infant seat because you like to lay back and relax, which makes it easy for me to get the necessary parts washed. After you’re clean I just set you in the tub with some water and you play with your toys. You absolutely love bath time. You splash, put things in your cup, take things out of your cup, try to drink the bath water (which gets a “NO”). You insist on trying to stand up a dozen times, which always gets the response “No, we SIT in the tub” and you sit back down and cry for ten seconds. Then you play and when you think we’ve forgotten about it, you try again. After bath we put you in your PJ’s and let you play for a little bit to get your extra energy out. Then your Daddy or I read you a few books. We always end with “The Going to Bed Book”. As soon as I start reading it you stick your thumb in your mouth. Then we turn out the lights, turn on the noise maker, and I nurse you for a few minutes. Then we sing our song and I put you down with your blankie. I love this routine and will be sad when you don’t need it any more.
- When you want something you blink your eyes at it. Not just a regular blink, but an I Dream of Genie type of blink (without the crossed arms and head bob). The doctor wanted us to teach you the sign for “more” but you’ve already chosen this one, so we’ll go with that for now!
- You babble all the time, but I’m not sure any of the noises are real words. You do say dadadadada and dadeedadee, but I’m not sure you know what it means. Every time I try to get you to say Mama, you laugh at me. Little stinker.
I’m sure there are more things I’m forgetting (especially since I skipped your nine month update). We’ll have a big change for a while this month. Your Nana has knee surgery next week, so Mommy will get to practice being a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom for two weeks. I am so excited (but sad for Nana of course)! I have big plans of sleeping in together, play dates, and as much quality time as I can possibly shove into those days. We love you Peanut! (Pictures to come tomorrow)
