August 27, 2012
Dear little princess,
You are so much fun at 10 months! You crawl EVERYWHERE and can get anywhere you want as quick as lightning. I can’t take my eyes off of you for even 2 seconds when there are stairs anywhere around because you beeline to them as quickly as your little knees will take you. You are extremely steady on your feet and are totally comfortable free standing and have even taken a few steps here and there. You can manage about two steps before you tumble down, but you’re so persistent I know you’ll be walking soon. Your memory is remarkable: hiding things out of sight is completely useless, you relentlessly track down the toy or the stairs or whatever it is you’re looking for. You’ve started using sign language a bit. You can do “all done” and “up please”. Your “all done” is more like clapping than rubbing your hands together, but you accompany it with an “aaaah” noise that sounds just like the tone I use when I say “aaaaaaaall done”. You started saying “hi” at the beginning of this month. You love to have conversations with everyone where you just say hi over and over. Nicky’s first word was “bye” and that felt right because he was always on the move to get somewhere. “Hi” as a first word fits your personality perfectly – you’re always ready to chat with people (as long as you know them well) and to snuggle up. Your face just lights up when you see someone to say hi to. If it’s your daddy your whole body gets into it – you kick your legs and wave your arms and if he doesn’t come over and hug you right away you freak out. You know daddy is “da-da-da” and I’m “ma-ma-ma”. You have picked up a few things from your brother as well – you do an awesome lion roar and the two of you will often have lion roar conversations. You’re starting to play a little with your brother. The two of you loved wrestling on the airbeds when we were on vacation and your little shrieks of joy as you flopped around on the bed were just precious. You crack up when you play with him – you look so happy to be able to keep up. You giggle a lot, especially when we tickle you or when you’re playing peek-a-boo.
We went on our big road trip to Oregon this month. You did pretty well being out of your element when it came to eating and sleeping. But you did not like being surrounded by so many new people. It was such a bummer, because all those new people wanted so much to hold you and play with you! You spent the entire trip either in my arms or frantically searching the room for me if we weren’t touching. Over the course of the trip you warmed up enough to some people to the point where you would smile and flirt with them if you were safe in my arms, and even got to the point where you would let a few select people hold you for a minute or two. The only firm exception was grandma Carla, who wasn’t even allowed to look at you without you screaming. As we were packing up the car to leave you finally relaxed enough to fall asleep in her arms which made us both so happy. We spent a lot of time swimming and biking on our trip and you loved it. The first day we went swimming you loved it so much that you kept crawling back to the pool immediately whenever we took you out to warm up. We had lots of fun while we were there but you were undeniably happy to be home. You did very little independent play while we were in Oregon (mainly because you always needed to be so close to me), but as soon as you were home you played all morning all by yourself and happily went around getting familiar with home again.
This week you start a new day care down the street from our house. You did a week there in July and by the end of the week you had warmed up to the people there so we’re hoping that you’ll transition well. I expect it will be another hard week though, especially with your stranger anxiety a little more developed right now than it was a couple months ago.
It is so much fun to watch you growing up. I wish you would slow down a little bit though. It’s so hard to watch you hit your milestones so quickly when I want you to stay my little baby forever!
I love you pumpkin,
Mommy