10 Months!

My sweet, adorable little Beanie is 10 months old today!

She is such a delight! People were right in saying that 9-12 months is an awesome age. To be honest, every age has been awesome, but its even better now with all the new stuff she is up to.


So here is a proud mama giving a list of her accomplishments the past month:

• Yesterday was a huge day since she started standing up without holding on to anything!!  Its still only a few minutes at a time, but so exciting to see. She is such a show-off :-) She was standing up, her bottle in one hand, and turned her head to look the other way...all without holding on to anything!
• She is also now holding her bottle when drinking milk which means Mommy gets a few minutes to do a few odds and ends. Yay!
• She is crawling super fast, pulling herself to standing with a lot of self assurance and trying to climb on things. She can climb things that are low, but not the sofa as yet although she tries hard.
• She is climbing up stairs now. I installed a gate on the top of the stairs and have one for the bottom as well.
• She is waving bye and today began clapping her hands, well at least doing the motions. 
• She is also babbling and now actually enunciating words, such as "okay" and "there" in context of things. A few days ago my Mom asked her "Beanie. where is my phone" and she turned around pointed and said "there". I don't think its a fluke.
• She has this cute habit of pointing at things, such as, the fan, light, window, etc and babbling.
• She LOVES gadgets and electronics. I swear this kid is going to be texting before she can write. She makes a beeline for phones, cell phones, laptops, calculators, remotes, flashlights, anything that is electronic.  Its amazing how at 9+ months she has mastered the "blackberry thumbs".  She holds the phone with both hands and uses her thumbs to press buttons. With the laptop, she uses her tiny fingers to press the keys while looking down at the keyboard and then at the screen, just as an adult would.  I don't let her play with the laptop much since I don't think the screen light is good for her, but its funny to watch. In fact she loves the laptop so much she cries if I don't let her touch it, so now I have to hide and use it!
• She loves books. She turns the pages and loves looking at the pictures. I bought her a book called "100 First Words" for Christmas and she can point out hairbrush, buttons, etc based on what she sees day to day.
• She also loves art which I am so thrilled about since I love art too. I have a lot of artwork on the walls and today when we were in the guest room she noticed some prints I bought in Venice and pointed to them. The moment I picked her up to give her a closer look, she got all excited!
• She understands everything. Its amazing how I can tell her to raise her hands, look at me, let me wipe your nose and she responds to it all.

Temperamentally, Beanie is a very happy baby and always smiling which I love. There is no sound in the world sweeter than her laughter.

She still thinks I am a clown and the moment she sees me starts smiling or laughing since she knows I will do something funny or "loony".

She is a good eater and eats practically anything, even if not tasty.  She is still on organic Stage 2 baby foods, simply because we are still trying to go through the very long list of fruits and veggies to check for allergies. I am now only giving it 2-3 days before introducing something new, because at a weekly rate we will never get done!

I tried giving her a small pieces of banana, but she did not know what to do with it in her mouth, so I am not pushing her. Nor am I in any hurry to introduce meats, She will have plenty of time to eat all that. We are just taking it easy and I am making her oatmeal thick so she gets used to thicker consistency of food. I know many 10 mos old are eating all sorts of things, but we are just doing it our slow gradual way. She is gaining eight (21lbs now!) so she is getting enough nutrition.

Sleep wise things seem to be better.  She is asleep by 6:30 pm - 7pm and wakes around 5:30 -6am. Some days like today its a 4am wake-up, but those are rare - thankfully!  On most nights we are down to one feeding only, usually around 2-3am. She will still wake up a few times at night, but a few sips of water and a cuddle usually put her back to sleep, and I can get at least one 3+ hour uninterrupted stretch of sleep each night which helps. Naps are down to usually only one in the mornings for an hour+. Sometimes she will take an afternoon nap around 2pm, but not always which is fine because she conks out at 6:30pm. She is now taking all her naps in the crib, and at night I am also limiting her co-sleeping with me so she is spending the majority of the night in the crib. I worry about her in bed with me given she moves around in her sleep.

Couple of cute stories:

Two nights ago I was putting her to sleep. I usually have her on my shoulder and rock her, while singing.  She puts her head on my left shoulder and with her left hand strokes my hair (I have short hair barely touching my shoulders). Well that night she decided to repeatedly yank my hair. At first I let her, but she was pulling quite hard and it was painful . So I put her back in her crib and went to the bathroom and tied my hair in a  ponytail. I come back out and picked her up.  She then pulled her head back, looked me straight in the face, stares for a few seconds and starts laughing.  She knew that I had tied my hair to foil her plans, also I rarely tie my hair so I guess  looked different and funny (?).  It was so cute! She was cracking up, which made me laugh and there we were, Beanie and I, laughing in the middle to the room!

Also, back in December, we were at a café and Beanie was being her cute, charming self and people were looking at her as they do at all babies. Anyways I left her with my parents, to go pick up my sandwich from the counter and an older guy walks up to me and says "your baby is beautiful, she looks just like you". I cannot tell you how happy that made me feel. I know Beanie is not genetically related to me, but to have someone see a resemblance, made me so tremendously happy.

I never though I would say this but I am so thankful that my own eggs did not work because I would not have this beautiful baby in my life.  And she is worth every heartache and disappointment I felt in all those years of TTC.  I would go through it all again, in a heartbeat, just to have her.

I love you beyond words, baby girl!

Happy 10 months birthday!