10 months

Time is going to keep flying I suppose because I thought I was just here writing Elsie's 9 month update. At 10 months Elsie is changing so quickly.

- She is all over the place now with the crawling, which I posted about below. Right now I am in the office so she is staying in this room and just crawling around. If I put her in the living room and then go to the kitchen to do something, then she crawls into the kitchen or goes looking for me. The other day I put her down in the living room and then went to the laundry room to change loads. When I came out, she was already to the side of the basement stairs. It is definately time to get a gate.

- Elsie still does lots of downward facing dogs.

- She pulls to standing at furniture at daycare but hasn't done it at home yet. She pulls up on the couch and exersaucer there. Don't know why she doesn't really try it here.

- She uses a larger variety of babble and little made up words and sounds. She is starting to do this less but for a while she communicated everything by going "eh, eh, eh eh, eh"

- The other day Matthew came home for lunch. Elsie saw him and said "Dada!" Very cute. It does seem like she is saying mama and dada with more purpose now. She still calls other people mama though.

- Last night, Matthew caught Elsie grab a book and say "book" but thought it might be a fluke. Then we went upstairs and he set her in her room. She immediately crawled to get a book and said "book". THen I gave her one later and again she said, "book". I told this story to the daycare lady this morning and when I picked Elsie up she said that Elsie was holding books and saying book there too. But now that we are home she is saying it a lot at random. Like she was sitting there staring at me while babbling and I replied "What Elsie?" She answered, "book".

- She continues to imitate words and sounds she hears. Getting to daycare today, she repeated "hi" to the daycare lady and waved at her. She waves hi and bye consistently now.

- She responds to NO by stopping what she is doing and screaming at me but then isn't afraid to start it again.

- Is becoming more attached and cries when I put her down, especially if I leave the room after doing so.

- Sleeping schedule is the same 7:30/8-6:30/7 but a week or so ago she was up two nights. One of them she was up for 4 hours through the night, don't know what that was about, maybe its because she had her first ear infection.

- She has started sleeping on her tummy at night. We still try and flip her before we go to bed.

- Eating a variety of foods now. Mostly finger feeds herself lately because it is easier. When we spoon feed her, she wants to do it herself and inevitably gets food everywhere. She loved fish at the fish fry the other night. She is starting to get just a little picky about food. She still eats anything but if it is something she doesn't like as much she will give up on it much faster.

- She is right around or just over 20 pounds.

- Wearing 12-18 month clothes.

- She hates the jumperoo now. I've tried many times when I need to keep her somewhere safe for a minute but she always acts like I am torturing her when I put her in it.

- Rarely (but not never) spits up now.

- Left eye seems to maybe be clearing out a little now.

- Still no teeth and none coming in that we can feel.

- She puts her arms up when I come over and say "up".

- Could go on and on but it is time to go feed the little bean again. I just caught her with another door stopper in her mouth. We really need to baby proof!


2 hours later I have to come back and add that Elsie has stood up twice tonight here at home now. Once she was by the fireplace and just popped up into standing and then again next to Matthew while he was laying down. She is also saying "hi" to us tonight. :)

Crawling!

I didn't realize how excited I would be to see Elsie crawl for the first time. I think the best part about it was that she crawled on the first time I tried to get her to and then that she just kept doing it and doing it and has been crawling all over the place ever since.
For a while, we would just set Elsie up to play with her toys all around her, so she never really had to move too much. Then I started to spread the toys out more and she would get to them by rolling, crawling backward, or diving. A common thing for her lately would be to dive, then sit up again, dive and stretch in the direction, then sit up, then dive one more time and stretch to what she wanted. I was starting to think she might skip traditional crawling altogether.
On Saturday, I noticed that she was really motivated to get to two things really quick. The first time it was a tiny speck of paper hidden in the carpet. The second time it was a little black string. Both times, she dove over toys and shimmied/army crawled really quick to get there. So I tried to think of something tiny I could entice her with and I thought of puffs. I brought a puff over to see what she would do and BOOM she crawled right away. I really thought it was a fluke but ran to get the video camera to try and tape it and she did it again and again...





Now it is like a light switch came on and she is crawling everywhere. She is already much more coordinated than she is in those videos. The best part was that this morning she was playing so happily and I was about 10 feet away. I said, "hey cutie pie!" She turned and smiled at me and then crawled over and I gave her a big hug. She is the best birthday present

I can't beleive my little Elsie bean is 9 months old. Really can't. Seems like we should be staying at 8 for a little while longer at least. At 9 months, Elsie makes her feelings known. She is a squealy babbly little baby. She screeches and screams in delight quite a bit. We know she is up in the morning or from a nap when we hear a screechy squeal. She also does this in talking or playing with others. Our daycare lady told us once that she was doing a high pitched screechy laugh and the two 1 year olds laughed when she did this so she kept repeating it. She also communicates her anger - will tell me how upset she is from time to time when I set her down and leave the room - or shout at me when I put her down for a nap and she wants to keep playing. She knows when I am talking to her and will look at me or respond with smiles or flailing her arms. I am starting to think she might be purposefully saying mom and mama but I do realize I am very biased and she probably isn't.

She does say mama and dada quite a bit. She will imitate us saying those and other words sometimes. She imitates words and sounds she hears. I made a bunch of videos of her and then was watching them back and Elsie kept imitating what she heard herself saying in the vids.

The most common comment that we hear about Elsie lately is that she is just such a happy baby. And she really is. She laughs and smiles all day long and is just so happy to explore or play with people. It is such a treat to come home to her excitement and laughter.

She is making lots of developments in her movements. Still not doing a 4 point crawl but she has crawls backwards. That started right at 9 months. She pulls herself up into a kneel - mostly to explore what is in the toy basket. If I have her seated on my leg next to the couch, then she can pull to stand up. I had her stand up at her walker the other night and she took 2 steps to the side while holding on, so that she could reach out and touch the little bee. She walks with her hands held and a little encouragment from us lifting her arms to indicate which foot she needs to move next. She gets into a sitting position from lying on her belly - quite often now, this started right at 9 months too. Basically she is all over the place. I will put her down on her belly, in the middle of the room, then go to the kitchen and then when I look at her again, she is suddenly sitting up by the foot rest.

She loves the opportunity to finger feed herself. She eats little puff cereals or tiny pieces of fruits and vegetables. New foods that she has had in the past month include turkey, sweet potatos, mango, white potato, broccoli, prunes, grapes, cauliflower and maybe some others that I am not thinking. Matthew and my mom sneak her table foods such as bread or cheese from time to time. Oh, and she has started some spices, such as cinnamon.

No more breast feeding. Officially finished up this month. She has 4 bottles a day.

Sleeping is the same. Morning nap, afternoon nap and sleeps through the night. Goes to bed between 7:30-8 and wakes up between 6-7. Had a stint this past month where she was getting up between 5-5:30 and a few times not even going back to bed. Little stinker!

I've been noticing a lot more purposeful play lately. She will open books and look at them. The other morning she opened her touch and feel book and was stroking the lion fur and turning the pages. In her jumperoo she was trying to grab each hangy toy (that hang up high) with each hand. It was like she was challenging herself to see if she could hold them both at the same time. She will take her rings off the post one by one. She assisted one night in buiilding a tower, putting blocks on top. She is in the phase where she drops toys from her high chair and then looks at them laying on the ground. We have a donated book with a label on it that says "Donated by:" She picked away at the label over a series of days and got it off. But she mostly still plays by eating her toys.

Still no teeth and no sign of them. She is getting a lot of hair though.

She makes all these cute weird faces lately. She gives us inquisitive looks. She squeals and sings.

CUrrently she is singing along with her aunt Angie as she bounces in her jumparoo.