Emma's 10 months old!

Wow…what a month!  Emma is definitely starting to transition into a toddler.  It makes me sad to think she won't be a baby much longer!

Firsts:

• Climbs stairs (she's gone up and even down)

I think I love her cute leg rolls in this photo more than that it's of her working on crawling the stairs.  I still don't like the latter so much at all.

• Pulls herself up onto anything, and I mean anything (she can get all the way to her feet from pretty much anything now…the couch isn't too high for her anymore!), and starting to cruise too
• Saying "bye bye" and peek-a-"boo" (though she hasn't said the former as much)
• Started babbling with the 'ma ma' sound! :)
• Pincer grasp
• First fireworks (4th of July night show that she stayed up and actually watched!)
• Her first rainbow!

• Playing at the activity table and pushing the activity walker (yes, she pushes and gets a few steps in before she tumbles to her knees)

Growth and Development:

She gets around by many modes, but crawling on hands and knees is more common now than the army crawl (though she still gets low and goes "commando" every once in awhile).   If she's not crawling, she's climbing.  She loves to pull herself up onto the couch, TV stand, side tables, stairs, anything.  She is amazing me at how well she keeps her balance though…she hasn't had too many tumbles lately.  She is even learning to walk by pushing the activity walker.  It usually moves away from her too quickly and she'll tumble to her knees, but she gets a few baby steps in first!

We had to drop her crib mattress down because she was standing up on her tip toes in her crib and looked a bit too much like she could get enough of her upper body over the rail for our comfort.

She points her pointer finger now.  Usually at me, and then I touch mine back to her…think ET Phone Home. :)  She babbles more…doing 'ba' and 'boo' sounds and 'ma' sounds and a variety of other sounds mixed in.

She wears size 12 months clothes and doesn't really wear shoes much yet, but we have one pair of size 2 that we've put on her feet a few times if we'll be out where she can practice standing.  She's definitely still got cute rolls, but they are quickly melting as much as she crawls and climbs and cruises around.

Mealtime:

New foods: turkey, potato, barley, bananas (all of which were mixed into baby foods, so she hasn't tried them on her own).  As you can see, the list is short.  I don't know where the time has gone, but we keep forgetting that she can have something new after a few days and suddenly it's a week or two later!  I am ready to start trying on her more truly solid foods that she'll need to mash in her mouth though.  I would have included puffs on the list above, but she didn't eat any!  I gave them to her and she pincer grasp'd it right up and then just played with it.

As for the bananas, we've finally found something she doesn't like!  So far she's only had bananas in baby food form (plain and then in some mixes) and every time she gags right away from it.  Evan ate the rest of the first jar I gave her (plain baby food bananas).  I think they smell gross though (more like banana candy smell than fresh bananas, and I've never liked banana flavored candy), so I don't blame her.  I'll try fresh mashed bananas with her soon and see if that goes any better.

She can drink from her sippy cup very well (tips it up and everything), and has even started drinking from straw/suction top cups.  And she really seems to like drinking water.  She will often drink quite a bit!

She has breastmilk 4-5 times per day.  In bottles it's usually about 4-5 oz per bottle.  Her breakfast every morning, which she seems to love, is baby oats mixed with prune juice.  Same trick we used with Evan and she is definitely a pretty regular gal! :)  I can tell that since she's drinking less (and usually only two bottles a day during daycare times) that my supply is dwindling.  I hope it hangs in there for these last two months though!

Hanging out with Daddy after we had dinner at a local outdoor food truck festival

Sleeping:

Emma has had a few nights of sleeping all the way through the night…but they are still rare.  Commonly wakes me around 4-5am for a snack.  The last few nights she's slept until 6am, had her snack and then slept until 8am.

She takes two good long naps each day (usually around 2 hrs each) and we sometimes have to wake her from her morning nap so it doesn't go too long into the middle of the day, which pushes back her afternoon nap then.  Just yesterday we were out grocery shopping over her morning nap time, and so she ended up missing it, but didn't seem to even need it!  Maybe she's starting to transition to just one nap per day?

Great day for the park!

Playtime:

Emma loves shoes and clothes!  If she can escape from the living room (which she loves to do and does so well now that we'll have to come up with some other items to close off the room) she immediately goes to the shoe rack by the front door and plays with the shoes.  I wouldn't care so much about this if it didn't occasionally involve her putting them in her mouth…ewwww, who knows where those shoes have been!

Then, if she finds a laundry basket that's her other favorite target.  She loves to pull all the clothes or towels out.  She could seriously sit for hours doing this if there were an endless supply of clothes in the basket!

Emma still loves Evan's train set, and while she wasn't able to get to them for a little while (because we put them up on a train table), that didn't last long and now Evan's right back to being upset when she comes by and destroys his train tracks.

Because she can pull herself up to standing, and even cruise a little bit, she is now enjoying the activity table and push walker toy, as well as she likes to play with the riding toys we have.  

 Don't ya just love how she "smiled for the camera"? (right)

She still likes her squeaky eggs, her stacking cups, her shape sorter (can't put the shapes in yet, but likes the yellow circle the best and likes to rattle them around or put things into and out of the sorter basket), her chunky puzzle and other toys like that.  However, she loses interest in them pretty quick these days and would rather explore new things.  Dangerous things like reaching for items she shouldn't have that are sitting on our side tables, escaping the living room in search of the hanging blinds at the back sliding door or a speck of food on the floor in the kitchen (eeks!).  We definitely have to watch her like a hawk now!  Or if I'm near her, she wants to climb on me.  If I'm on my laptop (i.e. work from home days) she wants to "work" on it too!  Let's just say that my work from home Monday with her is soon going to be going away, as I can really only work during her naps.  That and giving her the decoy toy laptop only worked for a little bit.

Here she was trying to help me while I was working (right)

Emma is still quite an easy going girl, but she is starting to become more vocal when she gets frustrated or upset.  Her frustrations usually come from her not being able to get to where she wants to be.  She's a very determined and observant girl, though, and is quite tolerant of Evan's rough-housing with her (I am much less tolerant of it than she is for sure!).  I love when I first get her up out of her crib how I can still hold her tight into my chest and give her a big long hug.  She gets very excited when she sees me and that is wonderful.  And I'm sure one of these days soon her "ma ma ma" babbles will actually be directed at me! :)