Our 10 month old

10 months have flown by and as Mia's personality really begins to emerge, we fall more and more in love with her. Here is the latest and greatest at 10 months old

Eating
She continues to be a good eater. She loves her pureed foods (I've continued to make all of her food, which has been easy and sort of fun), and has been a bit slower to take on finger foods than I anticipated. Perhaps it is because she is still working with only two teeth. Favorite breakfast foods include waffles, pureed fruits, yogurt, oatmeal, toast (I've tried eggs a few times, but without much luck). At lunch we try to serve only finger foods. She seems to love deli turkey. Her tray usually has quite the sampling on it - cheese, different types of diced fruits and veggies, small crackers, pasta, etc. At dinner she eats several ounces of pureed vegetables (she's not picky - loves them all, even brussel sprouts!) and rice cereal along with any finger foods that she can have from the regular dinner table. Her favorite finger foods are puffs - and she enjoys teething biscuits as well! She has a cup of water or half juice/half water with just about every meal, and I have started to offer formula in a sippy cup occasionally to prepare her for the transition to regular milk in a few months. She still nurses about 4 times a day (wake up, late morning, before afternoon nap, bedtime) and in the past week I have substituted one feeding (late afternoon, when my supply feels lowest anyways) for a bottle, which she seems happy to have.

Sleeping
Ugh - this child has really put us in our place as far as the sleeping goes. I guess we were a bit over confident in our abilities to sleep train. Luke was such a difficult, fussy infant, but ended up being a champion sleeper by about 5 months old. Mia ... not so much. The good news: she is now very good at putting herself to sleep, both at night and for naps. The bad news: she still is not consistently sleeping through the night (and by that I mean, 11-12 hours). We often have a wake up somewhere between 2am and 4am about 4 nights out of every week. Until very recently, I would eventually respond to her because she could scream so loud and for so long that we weren't sleeping through it anyways (even without the monitor turned on), but we've made the decision with the go-ahead from our pediatrician to really put our foot down, so she's going to cry/yell it out at night. Earlier in the month I tried putting Mia to bed earlier (somewhere between 6:15 and 6:45), and this seemed to help her get through the night. So, her day looks something like: 6:45-7:00 wake up, 9:30-11:30 morning nap, 2:30-3:30/4:00 afternoon nap, and bedtime by 6:45.

Playing
Mia is very mobile. She is fast and often surprises people with how quickly she moves around given her size (since she looks so small). She can crawl at lightning speed, can cruise around furniture, and I even have caught her standing on her own without holding onto anything a few times in the past week. Her favorite game is climbing up the stairs while someone chases her. She also loves "helping Mommy" - putting laundry in the dryer, climbing into the open dishwasher, unloading newly folded laundry from the basket (onto the floor in one giant heap), and unrolling toilet paper from the rolls in all of the bathrooms. She doesn't seem to really love any one toy - in fact, she seems to like playing with all things that are NOT toys. And, of course, she loves anything her big brother is playing with, much to his dismay. Pat-a-cake and This Little Piggy are two of her favorite games and she has just recently started dancing (rocking) to music or singing.

Talking
This month has also brought with it some of Mia's first words. Her first word was "da-da," followed by "ma-ma." She also can now wave and knows the sign for "more." She loves to babble and "read" stories to us. We are working on learning many more new signs - Luke was such a great signer, and we loved to be able to communicate in that way with him when he was a baby, so hopefully it will be the same for Mia.

Growing
Ah, she's SUCH a peanut! People see her and almost always guess that she's about 6 months old (until they watch her take off crawling!). My guess is that she's about 16 pounds now. She is really fitting into the 6-12 month clothes, but sleepers in that size are still too big. Carter's 9 month clothes are still a bit big, but that's what she's wearing. When she wears disposable diapers they are size 2 ... although, I just bought a pack of size 3 this week for our upcoming trip to Cabo, and I just washed her medium sized BumGenius diapers and I'm going to put the smalls away. I am so savoring this time where she's still small and feels so much like a baby - I know it will be gone all too soon.

Just in general, Mia is a very happy and pretty easy baby. She definitely has a mind of her own, knows what she wants and isn't afraid to tell you, and is very short right now in the patience department (think yelling immediately upon waking or when she decides she has finished a meal). She can be very loud, loves to squeal, and is full of smiles and laughter. What a joy ... what a perfectly, well-rounded girl. We're in love!

Race ya to the top!

WHAT!? Really? She just looks so tiny, it's hard for me to believe that she can or should be doing any of this. Uh, I think we might also need a gate at the bottom of the stairs.

So many changes...

...so little time.

I feel like Mia is changing and learning new things daily right now. I almost can't keep up with documenting all of the new stuff that is happening in her world.

So, as of August 22nd, she's an official crawler. She was really crawling for a few weeks before then, but that is the date when I noticed that she could really span pretty much an entire room on her hands and knees.

This week, I found her moved from a crawling position into a sitting position. Not sure if it was just an "accident" as I haven't seen it happen again, but apparently she can do it.

Then, today, I watched her pull up to standing. She seemed really pleased with herself, so I am guessing that she may try to do it again soon. I'll have to catch it with the camera next time.

Oh, and in other exciting, Mia news (well, exciting for me!), her hair has really started to fill in. It is still very light, but I have definitely noticed a difference in the past couple of weeks. She has some long wispies that sometimes get in her eyes, and it is also just starting to fill in. It totally sticks up at the back of her head right now, like a little chicken - which cracks me up. Too cute!

A day in the life of Mia: Eat, Sleep, Play

Eating:
The girl continues to love her food. She eats anything and everything we have offered to her. So far, she's eating: rice cereal, oatmeal, peaches, pears, apples, apricots, bananas, avocados, broccoli, green beans, sweet potatoes, peas, and carrots. Next up to try: zucchini! She currently eats two "solid" meals per day, one in the morning and one in the evening. She also nurses 5-6 times each day.

Sleeping:
Mia sleeps great during the day. We have two very established naps now. Her morning nap typically starts just after 9 and can last anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours. The afternoon nap start time really depends on how long her morning nap was that day, but I try to stretch her to as close to 2 o'clock as I can so that I have both kids napping at the same time. Her afternoon nap tends to last 2 hours. She is ready to go to bed for the night by around 7:30. This is all great ... it is the night time sleep that is not so wonderful. Up until a few weeks ago, Mia was sleeping from bedtime until around 3 or 4am, feeding, and then returning to sleep until 7 or 7:30 ... not too bad. Since she got her first tooth, her night sleep has not gone back to a regular pattern, she seems to be waking more frequently (think 12am, sometimes 4am, and then up for the morning at 6am) ... not so much fun for Mommy and Daddy. Hopefully we can work this out VERY soon!

Playing:
Mia loves to play with anything her brother is playing with. She has figured out that she can propel herself forward by pushing off the floor with her feet while on her belly, and also has gotten up on her knees in the past few days. Full-fledged crawling is just around the corner and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. Life with a preschooler and a crawler = YIKES! Mia also puts everything she finds in her mouth. Anything she can get in there quickly becomes her favorite toy. She likes to be in the exersaucer for limited amounts of time, but she definitely does not yet have the same love for it that Luke did at her age. She CAN sit up, but prefers not to. She only lasts for a minute or two and then will dive down, face first usually, to get onto her belly.

Other Mia stuff:
Mia just has one tooth. We're still waiting for the one next to it to come through. She is very vocal and will shout to let us know that she wants our attention or would like to change activities. I can't believe how quickly she is growing and changing. I want her to stop, or at least slow down, but at the same time, I can't wait to see the next stage...

Tahoe firsts

Sometimes it seems like everything happens at once - things change overnight. I guess this is especially true in the world of parenting.

While we were in Tahoe this past weekend, Mia got her first tooth - the lower front left one. I can practically see the one right next to it through the gumline, so I'm sure that it will be in any day now also. Funny thing is, I still remember Luke's first tooth; it came through when we were in Tahoe over MLK weekend in 2008. Once Mia's tooth is really visible, I'll post another picture. Until then, rest assured that she is letting me know that she isn't all that happy about these teething pains. We've been up every several hours at night for the past 5 nights or so. Fun times!

Mia also took her first ride on a swing over the weekend. She loved it. LOVED it! She squealed and kicked her legs and smiled the entire time ... just like her brother did when he first tried out the swing. Looks like we're going to need to get another swing in the backyard!

And crawling - she'll be doing it pretty soon. Over the weekend I noticed her trying to push herself forward using her feet. She was also starting to get the idea of getting her knees underneath her. Now this I was NOT ready for :(. A preschooler and a crawler is a whole new ballgame.