Ten Months

Lollypop!

Sweet baby of ours.  On this, your Uncle David's 34th birthday, you also turn 10 months old!

Speaking of Uncle David, you are very pleased that he is engaged!  You love your Aunt-Leah-to-be, and she is so sweet to you.  They are planning for a wedding later in this year, and we are very much looking forward to it!

You're still pulling up on ev-er-y-thing, and I've caught you a couple of times trying to stand up on your own.  I don't know if you mean to do it, or if you start to do it by instinct, get halfway into it before you realize that you really don't have anything around you to hold onto!  I figure we get to enjoy your crawling stage a little bit longer.  At least I hope so.  It's so sweet, and you're really pretty effective with it.  You can get from one end of the house to the other on your own.  (And you're usually looking for me when you do it).  I love the sparkle in your eyes when you crawl over to my desk chair, pull up on it and say whatever is the consonant of the day to get me to pick you up.  Speaking of consonants, you're saying "ma-ma's" (not for mommy), "da-da's" (not for daddy, yet), "ba-ba's", and you've just started this crazy "ha" sound that is accompanied by a crazy, wheezy, hyper-ventilating sound.  lol...  Sorry.  It's hard to describe!

You love to turn over the garbage can at my desk and take out every.single.piece of what-have-you that's in there.  And, yes, I let you do it.  It's pretty much just paper.  And it amuses you.  And I get a blog post finished.  It's all good.

You have become strangely uninterested in baby food.  You'll eat it, but not with the delight you had been having.  You want to eat cheerios and corn chex and things like that.  You want to nurse a lot instead of eating.  You like to squish beans and peas in your mouth, but you don't want to eat them.  It's a conundrum.  Thankfully for you, your mommy is so busy with all the rest of life, that I don't have time to worry about it.  I have enough of a memory left to know that it will all work itself out.  And since you're still nursing, I'm not worried about nutrition.  (And your blood tests from your last check-up confirmed that you don't need vitamins, so it's all good).

Tooter and Poodle both can make you giggle.  Your daddy can *really* make you giggle.  And I'm still the person you have to have at night.  :-)

As of today, you have your fourth tooth!  You now have two on the bottom, and two on the top (with the 2nd one on the top having juuuust broken through the gumline).  Teething is not your friend.  I was hoping that maybe you'd be less susceptible to all the pain of it.  But, maybe that will come with the later teeth, like it was with your brother.  I hope so.  Because your nighttime sleep is pretty yucky right now.  Not that I mind.  I mean, I understand.  And I know that it will get better.  I just wish you could sleep better.  Sweet baby.

You've been to Florida and Alabama in the past 5 weeks.  Had a nine month well-baby checkup with vaccinations.  Been through an annual meeting at church as well as Singing School.  Survived the kitchen getting new countertops.  And you're getting through the summer heat as best you can!  It's been a hectic month for you.  I will admit to some crazy-mommy moments because of all the activity, but you have that instant forgiveness for crazy parents that God blesses the babies to have.  Ahhhh, that we all could have that knee-jerk forgiveness trait again!

It's a little disconcerting that you will be a whole year old in just two wee months.  But I can not tell you how blessed we feel because of you.  You are loved by your family, by your church, by your siblings' friends.  (And their mommies!)

And your daddy and mommy feel lighter and brighter when we see you.  We feel warmer and more complete when we hold you.  And we know that our family is better because of you.  Happy 10 months, our darling girl!