10 month newsletter

Dearest Bug,

You turned ten months old. I can not believe it. Really. It makes me sad and happy at the same time.

This is an brilliant age, with you finally really truly interacting with your mama and daddy. Finally you sort of play along side your sister, who still totally adores you. You, my dear are a climber. I know that sounds dumb, because all kids climb at one point or another, but you darling are a master at it already. You routinely “help” me put the dishes in the dishwasher by climbing on the door and sitting there. You can almost make it onto the couch, and the stairs? So not a problem for you. (You had those mastered months ago.) Since you can get onto nearly anything our idea is to teach you to safely maneuver off of the same places. I have shown you how to roll off the couch when you are done nursing, and you love that. I lay on my side and you do also, but as you eat you wiggle, doing the nursing acrobatics you have started doing (oh you can do amazing things while attached to your mama!) Then you are done and you just ooze your legs off of the couch and touch the floor. You are off and cruising and crawling.

Walking is still one of those things you could care less about. Daddy swears he saw you take a step the other day. Twice. Now I have not seen ANY of that. In fact, I will sit 2 steps from you, so that you could not just grab me. You will whimper and then reach for me, then plop your hefty behind down and crawl to me.

You have an opinion about everything. Especially when it comes to the things that go in your mouth. The past few weeks you have started letting us know when you want dinner. You crawl over to the table and hang on your chair’s leg and whine. You still want my milk often, but now you are actually eating two meals a day. I was once worried that you would decided to be all done with mama’s milk, by now, because I really want to extended breastfeed you, so the fact that you really didn’t want food until the past few months was a relief to me. You still love green beans, the other day I heated up some frozen green beans and chopped them into baby bite-sized pieces, and you ate 4 of them (whole green beans.) You were really enjoying that! As far as jarred baby food your favorite is from Earth’s Best Organic. You really like the spinach and carrot kind. I think you are finally ready for the 3rd stage foods, hopefully they have some new and exciting flavors at Whole Foods!

I think you will be a lefty, like your mama. You reach for things with your left hand more than the right. Your sister always grabbed with her right hand first. So you may look just like your daddy, but you act more like your mama!

This weekend we took you swimming for the first time. Guess what? You loved it, I mean you LLLOOOOVVVVEEEEDDDD it. From the moment you hit the water until I dragged you out, it was like you were meant to be in there. I had you in a watersling, so it would be easier to hold you (I naively thought you would be afraid and cling to me.) You kept trying to climb out of the sling and swim away. I thought you would just dive out of my arms!

There are so many little things you do at this age that I want to just hold on to. Your love for your sister, and anything she has or touches, your desire to be held by mama, your sweet chubby squishy thighs. I think you are a “Leaner” too. You will be standing or sitting near something or someone and just lean on to them. That is where my nickname came from, I used to do that to Great-Grandpa. My sweet little, leaning, lefty, I love you.

~the mama