ten months

I'm not really ready to talk about your tenth month. This is waaaay too close to a year. How could you possibly be so big? Nevertheless, it seems you just get better every day, if that's possible. You're the happiest smiliest thing in the world. We really can't get enough of you. Do I say that every month? I think I probably do. But it's the honest truth.

This month, you started walking. I'm not quite ready to say that you are walking, per say, but you can walk - unassisted, with or without an object to get you started. You can take like ten or fifteen steps. And even then you often just sit down and crawl (you don't fall) because crawling is just so much faster for you. You love LOVE to play-crawl with your sister or your Daddy. Or anyone really who will play chase with you. You totally understand the concept too - you crawl away as fast as you can, then look back to make sure someone is chasing you, then crawl away again. You'll also crawl after someone when you know they're playing with you.

You have a really awesome courtesy laugh. Full bellied. Big smile. And you do it at the drop of a hat. Sometimes you fake laugh just to get us to laugh. You want to do everything we do, especially everything your sister does. Papa calls you his favorite twelve-year-old. :)

You still have no teeth. Blah. You're teething like crazy. We can tell your mouth is just aching. And you have been sleeping horridly. While I'm not looking forward to losing your adorable gummy smile, I'm hoping that when those teeth break through, you'll get some relief. Although it's just downhill from here, because if you're like your sister, you'll be slowly growing teeth for the next year.

You love mirrors. You get a huge kick out of yourself. Grandma Lichelle has a floor length mirror that you spent considerable time at while visiting. While at her house, you also learned to love dogs. At first you were really worried about the situation as a whole. But by the end of our first trip this month, you were chasing Miley (the small dog) around. Speaking of trips, you went to St. George and then two weeks later to Bryce Canyon National Park for the annular eclipse (we also had a pit stop in St. George). In fact, you turned ten months on the day of the eclipse. You've become a pretty good traveler as you're much more adept at grabbing toys from the toy bucket in the car and entertaining yourself. I think the fact that you have loads of solid foods in you all the time helps you as well as you're not hungry and whiny.

Speaking of food. You love to eat still. You'll eat anything. You seriously try anything we're eating. Some of the random things you've tried (and liked) this month: stuffed peppers, black bean burgers, hamburgers, avocado chicken salad. I still give you a fair amount of pureed fruits and veggies as it's the quickest way to get food into you (without teeth to help). You can drink out of sippies and straw cups. This is mostly because you steal your sister's. You watch until she's done drinking her juice, scoot quickly over, and finish up her leftovers. You also guzzle water from your own sippy though. I think you like sippies because you see Annabelle using them.

You love taking a bath. You have for quite some time, but you actually know what I'm talking about when I say the word "bath" now. If you're fussing, I just have to mention a "bath" and you settle right down. I can see that you understand a lot of words these days. You look for the correct person when I ask you where they are (Daddy or Annabelle). When I ask you what you have, you'll open your hand (or your mouth) and show it to me. If I say "shoot it" sometimes you'll spit your binky still, but often you just remove it and put it down. You still occasionally say Mama, Dada, and num num (for a bottle). But you mostly just speak in jibberish. You love to say the B sound. Bubbles, balls. When I was practicing with your sister, we got to B, and when I repeated the sound for Belle, you giggled and yelled, "Buh, buh, buh, buh!" It's one sound we can almost always get you to repeat.

You still love reading. You get REALLY mad during scripture reading time because it's not a picture book. You can find your favorite books out of stacks. Unfortunately, you love them so much, you've started tearing. I've had to start putting some up high and leaving just board books down for you.

You are still a mama's girl, but not so ridiculous. You've learned to really love the relatives on both sides. If I'm not in the room, you're happy as a clam with them. You love your Daddy lots and lots too. After we went to St. George for the weekend, when you first saw him you lunged and basically wouldn't leave his side the entire evening. If you're really cranky, we can count on some quiet time with Daddy to settle you down. You really like that Daddy.

You're pretty much the bee's knees. We love you Lou Lou. Every little thing about you.

Love,

Mama

Here she is at one month.

Here she is at two months.

Here she is at three months.

Here she is at four months.

Here she is at five months.

Here she is at six months.

Here she is at seven months.

Here she is at eight months.

Here she is at nine months.