10 month stats

D turned 10 months old on Wednesday – double digit months! She seriously gets funnier and crazier each day. I have a feeling we’re going to have one precocious little girl on our hands if these past couple months are any indication.

Not a whole lot has changed since the 9 month stats and she doesn’t have another doctor’s appointment for measurements until August, but I’ll do a rundown anyway.

Tricks:

• Her new thing in the past week or two is “crawling”. I say it in quotes because it’s still not your typical hand-knee, hand-knee crawling, but she’s at least now got the idea of getting on and staying fully on her hands and knees. Then she kind of hops/scoots herself forward. It’s hilarious. We thought her frog-legged scoot was crazy, but now the hopping forward while pulling along on her knees has taken its place. I’ll try to get a video of it to put on here so you can witness the cuteness first-hand.
• She pulls herself up to stand on anything with ease now. When she first learned this it was more of a tentative wooahh, what is happening here? Why are my legs straight underneath me instead of in a little pile? Now she just pops right up like nobody’s business. It’s funniest when she does this while on the couch so she’s standing against the back cushion, then she’ll start falling down and rolling all over the place then standing back up to do it all again – very goofy infant acrobatics.
• She also walks around holding onto furniture after pulling herself up quite freely now. Again, the first couple steps when she discovered this trick were pretty wobbly, like ohmygosh what are those feet things doing down there?? But now she’s all come on guys, you mean you wanted me to just stand there? Pssh, that’s baby stuff. I’m walking here!
• Still lots of clapping and “singing”. The best is when she breaks out into a chorus of high-pitched squeals as I’m trying to change her diaper first thing in the morning. Sorry, Daddy, I know you’re sleeping but I’ve got to wake up my vocal chords too!
• We have started hearing more new sounds fall out of her mouth lately, like she’s starting to try to put consonants together instead of the usual strings of na-na-na, da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, dis-dis, dat-dat, etc. She’ll throw some br sounds in every once in a while and kind of a ml sound. Yeah, I guess it’s a lot harder to explain in writing. I’ll try to start posting some audio clips too as she progresses.
• Still just the 6 teeth in there so far. We think some new ones may be sprouting soon though because she’s begun drooling a lot again and she’s constantly playing with her tongue. If it’s not curled up out the side of her mouth, it’s flapping in and out in a blather-blather-blather noise. (again, a hard sound to explain in writing, but i know you know what i mean. try it – flick your tongue and and out of your mouth making noise and it sounds a lot like blather-blather)

Likes:

• Pretty much all the same foods are still her main go-tos – Gerber baby cereal (usually either oatmeal or mixed grain), bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, baby yogurt, etc. We did switch her to eat solely off the daycare menu last week, so we no longer have to take food for her. That is very nice. And fortunately she gets a lot more variety there than I’ve had luck with getting her to try at home – they’ll have things like pancakes, toast, cereal, and fruit for breakfast; pastas, veggies, grilled cheese or turkey and cheese sandwiches, and fruit for lunch; goldfish crackers or Cheerios and fruit for a snack in the afternoon; and they always give her a sippy cup of water after each meal/snack. My goal is to get her eating all non-baby food at meals, but we’re not quite there yet. That’s why I keep giving her the Gerber cereal at home – I know it has good nutritional value in it and she’ll eat a lot of it to fill up. Especially when she gets picky with food, I worry that then she doesn’t eat enough.
• She switched to all whole milk as of last week as well, and daycare provides that each day for her too. Fortunately she enjoys the whole milk as much as she did breast milk, so that transition was nothing for her. Now if I could just get her to take the vitamins she needs since there is no iron in the moo juice. I can’t really blame her though – they’re a dropper full of nasty dark yellow liquid that smells like ass, so I can only imagine how it tastes. She’s taken them a couple times, but usually she gets one taste, scrunches up her whole face like I’m trying to feed her poison, and spits out whatever has managed to make it into her mouth. Not cool since that shit stains like you wouldn’t believe.
• Reading books (especially Karen Katz lift-the-flap ones) and playing with all of her toys. She’s not picky – she’ll play with anything and everything.
• Playing with and rearranging all the magnets on the fridge. She also loves to look at all the pictures on there.
• Looking at pictures of herself. I’m not kidding. This kid’s vain, too.
• Being outside – stroller rides, playing in the grass, sitting with Daddy on the porch just watching.
• Following you around the house and watching your every move. She gets especially mesmerized when you brush your teeth, which she likes to do with her finger toothbrush and baby toothpaste as well.
• Pulling on your hair, smacking your cheek, or exploring your face and mouth with her free hand while you give her a bottle. If anyone else tried to smack my face or dig out my molars and tongue with their bare hands I’d be more than slightly annoyed, but those sweet sweet baby hands can roam as they please.

Dislikes:

• In the foods category she isn’t a big fan of new textures. Pastas and pears have been ones she’s spit out on me a couple times. But she is getting better at eating meats – she likes brats. 🙂
• Diaper and clothes changing
• Still not liking getting strapped into the car seat, but fortunately she’s fine once in there (usually).
• Being put to bed if she’s not fully ready. Good luck trying to get her to go to sleep if you put her in her crib too soon.

And here are some recent pictures of our growing beauty.