10 Months Old

Leah @ 10 months old:

* Measurements- I didn't get a chance to weigh or measure her yet, but I can tell she's getting bigger! She looks so tall to me and she's heavier and she's quickly growing out of all her clothes. She can wear some 6-9 month things, and some 9-12 month things.

* Sleeping- The sleeping was going so well... I had finally gotten to the point where I could put her down & not have to rush out of the room and worry she would start to wail. And then... she learned how to pull herself up in her crib. And that is all she wants to do. She most certainly does NOT want to go to sleep, thank you very much... She didn't nap well at all this past weekend. Her schedule has been a little crazy, though, with preschool being out & VBS last week, so she doesn't have much stability. I've been debating cutting out her morning nap, because it's never long anyway and she always seems to fight it. The only issue I have with that is that she doesn't get out of school (& I don't get off work) until 2, and that is a long time to wait for an afternoon nap. Going to have to put some thought into this...

This one was not staged. This was when I went in to get her after a nap.

* Eating- The girl will eat anything you put in front of her! She's getting a little bored of pureed foods, because she just wants to do everything herself. So I try to shove a little of the pureed foods in while she's muching on her own things. I'm obsessed with coming up with new & interesting things she can pick up and eat on her own, even borrowing several baby "cookbooks" from the library. I can't really say she has a favorite, because she gets excited about anything: steamed peas & corn, rice, steamed soft fruits (although those are hard for her to pick up), cubed cheese, pieces of bread, waffles, noodles, scrambled eggs, beans, cereal. Gerber Yogurt Melts are like candy to her and she kicks her legs when she sees me getting the bag out (too bad those are kind of expensive to keep around!). She will keep eating as long as you keep putting food in front of her. She is a great eater! (She even eats things she can find on the floor, including hair, carpet, and various crumbs.)

- She still takes about 4 6-oz. bottles a day, although I'm working on cutting it back to 3 a day. Since she's eating so much at meals, she could probably handle it. I would still be 1 first thing in the morning, one before the afternoon nap & one before bed, then eventually I could push them closer to meal times. She still doesn't get the sippy cup, and I'm at a loss for what else to do. She chews on it or throws it. If she doesn't get it by her 1st birthday, I may just have to cut out the bottles cold turkey & give her no choice. I don't like to see toddlers carrying around their own bottles.

* What She's Doing Now-

- She has caught on big time to the pulling up thing & has become much more mobile over the past few days. She still uses her army crawl to get around, but she can go from her belly to sitting up fairly easily and uses that to kind of "tumble" around the house from hands & knees to sitting to crawling. She can get onto her knees and then pull up onto pretty much anything, including my legs if I am standing up somewhere. She even cruises a little around the coffee table! Sometimes she thinks she's a big girl & tries to stand up without holding on to anything, but always ends up falling. We can't keep anything on the coffee table anymore, because she is very nosy & grabs for anything she sees. It seems like I'm saying "no" a lot more these days!

- She is so talkative! From the minute she wakes up she is screaming for attention. She uses many more syllables now: "sh" and "th" and "ah". She "sings" to herself in the car and talks to her toys constantly. She's also learned to click her tongue & loves to do that.

- She loves stuffed animals. She has a preference for this Pooh bear-- we're not a big fan of Pooh, but that's just what we've been giving her-- and when she sees it she starts kicking her legs in excitement, and when she gets it, she starts biting his face. She also has a huge Dora the Explorer pillow, and here is what she does to it:

- She seems to think she is a beauty queen. At church, she is the only baby, so she always gets tons of attention. She's learned to put on this charming little grin that gets everyone to say how cute she is. Sometimes when we're out she'll start her little wave at everyone that walks past. I have a feeling she loves being the focus of attention. Lately, though, she'll bury her head in my chest if I'm holding her when someone comes to talk to her, as if she's getting a little more shy & reserved.

- She has at least 3, maybe 4 new teeth on the top (she won't let me see them unless she's giggling). She was definately fussy the first few days they started to break through. Now she just uses them to bite.

Attempting to scale the bookshelf, after she had pulled all the books off the bottom shelf. T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Here are a couple short videos of what I see ALL DAY LONG. You can hear her "talking" a little in both of them. In the first one she was getting ready to pull herself up but saw the camera so she stopped to cheese. In the second one, she's cruising a very little bit.