Ten Months Old!

This actually started out as a nine-month update. But it’s taken me a month to write, so now it’s a ten-month update. So there.

The other night I went through some old-ish posts. It’s really hard to believe that just three months ago Emma was seriously a completely different baby. At seven months she was just transitioning to her crib, just (kind of) beginning to sleep through the night, transitioning out of swaddling, barely eating, and only just starting to kind of be fun and happy. The crazy feels like a distant memory. Vivid. But distant. That feels good. It’s nice to feel some semblance of normalcy. It’s nice to be, at least for the moment, outside of the sleep-deprivation, anxiety, and depression that consumed our family for seven months. It’s akin to coming out of a dark cave and into the sun. Sure, she’s a baby, so she’s still needy and she still cries. She still has reflux and a tendency towards respiratory issues. But seriously. She’s fantastic. Everywhere we go she charms the pants off the world. She smiles and laughs and gets the entire population to stop what they’re doing and smile with her. Given her spirited disposition, I’m thinking this is probably some kind of power play. She’s wooing the world in order to dominate it. But that’s cool. She’d probably do a pretty good job.

 

 

 

 

 

It also occurred to me while reading her eight-month post that she’s changed quite a bit in just the couple of months. She claps and waves and jabbers on and on in her little baby nonsense. She is super social, clearly. So nothing like her parents. Where did my children come from? But I’ll take it. She’s still very independent. And since she can now crawl and pull herself up on the nearest surface and walk alongside it, she’s mobile. And she's quite adept at pushing her walking toys. Look out, world. We’ve got a girl on a mission. To search and find and eat. So if you’re looking to find out whether you’ve adequately baby-proofed your home, look no further. Two minutes in your house and Emma will direct you to all of the spots you missed. She will also help you finish vacuuming and sweeping your floors. With her mouth. Babies are gross. Speaking of hands and mouths, she has an affinity for grass. It used to be fun to take her outside and put her on a blanket with some toys while Ben played. Now it’s not fun. It’s work. Because she laughs at such attempts at boundaries. She simply crawls right off, grabs a handful of grass, and aims it for her mouth. Then she crawls to the pavement. She loves the pavement. Crazy daredevil.

Other stuff she does: she loves the swings, loves being outside, loves her brother, makes a super funny "angry face", blows kisses, and says "yeah" all day long.

At 18 pounds and 28 inches, she’s in the 25^th percentile for weight and the 50^th for height. So she’s doing great. As long as I give her her medication (which, as I’m typing this, I realized I did not do this morning), her reflux is more or less a non-issue. Her breathing problems seem to have abated for the time being. She is a happy, personable, busy, healthy baby girl.

I dare you to not fall completely in love with her.