ten months!

Ohhhhh, my dear sweet Millsie, you have gone and turned TEN MONTHS OLD!

I would not stand for this nonsense, except that you are an exceptionally fabulous little ten-month-old and can't even bring myself to resent you growing older this time.

I wouldn't change anything about you, except maybe your desire to act like a maniac in this rocker during your photo session. You are fearless, child. Your life was in danger no less than 20 times in the three minutes it took me to try to snap a few pictures with a real smile...so thanks for taking years off MY life!

RAWR!!!!! I'M GONNA GET YOU, BABY!!!

Aliases: Millie, Mills, Millsie, Nuggie, Nugs, Little Bit

Stats: Probably about 22 pounds. She actually hasn't been to the doctor since May 15, which is (sadly) probably a record for her (since January, anyway). She was a few ounces short of 22 pounds that day, so I feel like my guess is pretty safe.

She wears 12 month clothes (but can still dabble in some 9-12 and also some 12-18 month stuff) and a size 3 or 4 in disposable diapers- we have some of each, and they both fit fine.

Listen, Petunia. You stay right here and keep me company while I tolerate this breathing treatment. We can do a puzzle, okay?

Habits:

• Eating- She's still a great eater! She's cut back to 20-22 ounces of formula per day, usually four 5-ounce bottles and maybe a 'baby bottle' (2ish ounces) right before bed if it's been awhile since dinner. She is still an EXCELLENT solids eater- she eats everything we eat (including curry, we've discovered!!) (but not including junk food. We eat that after she goes to bed, ha.) and doesn't seem to dislike anything. Right now her hands-down favorite is baked sweet potato, followed by cantaloupe. Basically...orange food. She has started eating the food that they cook for the big kids at school! I take the week's menu and highlight the things she can have and her teachers bring her a plate to her room! They are all so tickled by what a good independent (if messy) eater she is- I have turned them all into BLW believers!! I'm super excited about her eating the school meals because this really cuts down on what I have to prepare (and pack, and pay for, haha) each day!!
• Sleeping- Wellllll...you can't win 'em all. She transitioned to her own room (and crib, and sleep sack instead of a swaddle) this month, and the end result is less sleep. :) Not significantly less- maybe an hour total between taking longer to fall asleep at night and then waking up earlier in the morning. But less. And I won't even take into account the havoc that teething has wreaked this week. And although I thought that once she started sleeping in her crib at night she might magically start sleeping better in her crib at school...that has not proven to be the case. We're lucky if she naps for an hour TOTAL all day at school. It's kinda impressive, really...(I mean, it is actually impressive that she's still a happy baby 95% of the time. Her teachers all seem amazed that she isn't cranky all the time...teething weeks excepted, of course.) The most interesting thing about her sleep this month is that all of the sudden she's a tummy-only sleeper (with occasional bouts of sleeping on her left side- just like mommy)! After nine months of violent hatred towards anything that remotely resembled being on her stomach...two nights in the crib converted her to a belly-sleeper!! It's the funniest thing!

I can only settle down if I'm surrounded by soft things from Aden + Anais. And my Petunia.

Likes: This month she's started developing definite preferences for things (toys, mainly)- and her preferences remain the same across time and situations. This seems really huge to me!! For instance, every single time she gets down her farm puzzle, she grabs the horse and the cow first. Always those two. And then she bangs them together. And then eventually she may play with the other pieces, too, but she always starts with the cow and horse. If we remove those two, she will look around for them. 

I can't help it, I just like what I like!

She feels the same way about the peacock and the food trough from her Noah's Ark Little People toy. Those two are the best, the other 20 animals are optional. She will hunt through her toy bin to find her favorite things, and she seems to remember what they are and notice if they are missing. I love this!!! She definitely prefers her bamboo Aden + Anais blankets to all other quilts/blankets/linens. If I try to hand her something else, she throws it away until I give her one of her soft blankies (luckily, we have 5 of them...plus the identical sleep sack). Her favorite book is her Farm book, and she likes the page with the sheepdog the most. She is just extremely reliable about her preferences these days, which is nice, because when she's upset, I know exactly which things will make her happy (a soft blanket and the farm book turned to the correct page) and exactly which things will infuriate her further (a stuffed animal that is not Petunia and a book that is not the farm book). (P.S. now that I write all this, I notice that most of her favorite things have to do with farms. Is she trying to tell us something?)

HEY!

She is also a reliable fan of swimming. It always hits the spot.

Dislikes: TEETHING. It is her arch nemesis. And mine, too. A related (and MAJOR) dislike is when we try to pry her mouth open to assess the progress in there. This (or maybe just the pain/swelling in general) has led to her developing a new default smile and expression...

They call this one Duck Face. I learned it from my farm book. I make this face when I don't want to smile.

They call this one Fake Smile. I do it when I'm happy but I don't want people to look at my teeth or poke their fingers around my mouth. Safety first!

Undecided About: Not much. Millie pretty much has All the Opinions now, so she lets you know if she likes or doesn't like something.

Special Skills: Crawling!! A month ago I wasn't sure she'd ever want to learn- and now she's a pro (and speedy, too!)! She also wasted no time learning to pull up on anything and everything.

Oh hey, you thought you would walk away for two seconds? Yeah, nope.

She also learned to wave about a week ago!!! It is absolutely precious. She loves to wave when she sees herself in the mirror, or when Matt or I come into a room.

Hi Mommy!! I'm just going to crawl off this chair, okay?

She is just absolutely so precious I can't stand it. And so happy (when she's not teething). And I love being her mom and getting to be the one to introduce her to this amazing world- like the other day, I was thinking about how incredibly happy and excited she gets when she's in a kiddie pool. A kiddie pool. And ours is like...a small kiddie pool, as these things go. Not more than two babies could even FIT in it. And yet she thinks it's the greatest thing ever. And I just want to tell her- but I know she can't understand- that there is so much more to swimming than just this $8 kiddie pool! There are BIGGER kiddie pools! And there are above ground pools! And inground pools! And Olympic-sized pools! And forget all that- there are oceans, Millie- something she can't even imagine and I couldn't possibly explain right now, because her mind couldn't even comprehend it...and I just get so excited as I think about all of these things that we'll get to show her one day. How right now she's splashing in three inches of water on her driveway and thinking that she's living large, but how next month she will be swimming in the ocean...

And there's nothing wrong with being content in three inches of water- in fact, it's good. It's good to love where you are. I hope she always loves splashing in a tiny pool, because it would be hard to relocate an ocean to northeast Georgia. But I love watching as she discovers that there is more to life. I feel so privileged to be the one (well, one half of the pair) tasked with showing her all of life. The little things, and the things that are so much bigger. 

 

Nine Months
Eight Months

Seven Months

Six Months

Five Months

Four Months

Three Months

Two Months

One Month