El, 10 Months Old

Wow, double digits.

She's dying to walk - has the cruising thing down pat, and has the bumps and bruises to prove it.  Makes a bee-line to the most dangerous thing she can find, whenever possible.  That means if someone has left a toilet lid up, she rushes in to go "potty-diving" as Av calls it.  If the toilet lid is down but the bathroom door is open, it's the next best thing as far as El is concerned.  She can still get in there and fish in the trash can  or at the very least, unwind a roll of toilet paper.  God help you if you've left a space heater on in a cold room somewhere - she can smell it.  She can hear a piece of hard candy drop from the kitchen table, from upstairs on the opposite end of the house.  Her head whiplashes around and she hits the floor to run-crawl toward it.  She can psychically divine where the dirtiest corner of any floor is.  Her favorite cabinet to try to open is the one under the sink where all the cleaning stuff is.  Dead bugs within her reach call out to her like she's Jennifer Love-Hewitt.

I read recently that you can tell how smart a baby is by how exhausted the parents are.  I think El might be a genius, judging by that.  She is one tough kid to keep up with.

Other little things are changing, too.  She still loves to unload stuff out of a container or drawer, but recently she figured out that if she puts it back in, she can have the thrill of taking it out again.  She has started to imitate words and sounds she hears more often.  The funniest example is when she emits a deep, grunting "Aaaaahhh" of satisfaction after nursing, the way a person might after downing a refreshing glass of ice water on a hot day.  She gets that from her father.  She's learned what "no" means, and like most kids her age she finds it hilarious.  She's very social, loves people.  Even the crappiest of her moods can be fixed by a trip to the store, where she can smile and play peek-a-boo with everyone, or by a few minutes at Av's school when we drop her off in the morning and El gets fawned over by kids and parents alike. 

She's got four teeth - the top two just came in and it looks like two more are on deck (the top eye teeth).  She's eating a little more food now with less gastric upset.

I'll think of more later and continue this, with pictures.

Co-Sleeping is Awesome, Even When it Sucks

Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, because I know El is my last baby.  But practically speaking, sleeping with her is the only way I can get even the smidgen of rest I do get.  I can't imagine how I would do it, getting out of bed several times a night (or even twice, which is her normal awakening routine), spending twenty minutes rocking or nursing her back to sleep, then putting her down and crawling back into bed to spend another twenty minutes getting myself to sleep, only to be awakened an hour later to do it all over again.  Some might say (and have said, ad nauseum) that she'd sleep longer if left in a crib.  I call b.s. on that - just because I know my kids and neither one of them cottoned to sleeping by themselves, except, thankfully, for daytime naps.

I don't know, call me crazy if you want.  It has been awful lately, with her going through whatever phase she's going through these days, and waking up every five seconds at night.  Don't get me wrong, I am human and I'm not a very nice one when I haven't had enough rest.  There's something primal in the brain, something that can't help but feel hostile toward any creature that threatens your survival in one way or another.  It's just part of the deal.  At those times, you pass your baby off to the other adult in your household, assuming you're lucky enough to have one.  But many nights I lay there with her, even after I've lost count of how many times she's woken up, and enjoy the feel of her little weight sprawled across me, the softness of her head, the happiness of being able to make her feel better after she wakes up with her little face all scrunched up and sad.  I wait until she's sufficiently unconscious, then ease her over to her side of the bed.  Then she's all peaceful, angelic baby face.  Sometimes I watch her for a bit, but never for long because sleep takes me over pretty fast once my body is free and I know that my baby is safe and content.  When she wakes up again, I won't have to move very far to help her.  And it'll all be over a nanosecond from now.

Some Highlights of El's Personality, 8 months

*Wrists and ankle roll.  Two wrists going means "Pick me up!"  One wrist going is a friendly wave, usually accompanied by "Dah dah!" which is her way of saying bye-bye.
*Bite-a-kiss.  This is when she dives at your face with mouth wide open, usually hell-bent for your nose.  If she gets it she bites it (gently, gotta give her some credit) and slobbers on it.  If you manage to turn your head away in time, she giggles and tries again.  Repeat. Sometimes she'll finally settle for your cheek, if you're persistent enough about keeping your nose out of reach, but in that case she'll bite you harder.  Punishment, I guess. 
*Loves an echo.  She yells in stairwells, vocalizes into plastic cups, etc. 
*Tongue sticks out between lips when concentrating.
*Favorite toy: sunglasses, especially when they can be pulled from someone's face.
*Fascinated by people's hair, since birth.
*Favorite thing to do outdoors:  rake up handfuls of grass and quickly stuff them in her mouth.
*Points and yells "That!"
*Big open-mouth smile.  Heart-melting when it's directed at you, but somehow even cuter in profile.
*Current raison d'etre: standing up.

El the Baby, Baby-ing, in Pictures

"Heyyyyyy!"

7.5 months old and already has a weird sense of humor.

"Give. Me. The. Camera."

  

Av took the rest of these...

    

                                                           

                                       
Please don't fault me for the formatting of these pictures.  Blogger kind of put them wherever the hell it felt like.  Leaving now to go pick up a copy of HTML for Dummies.   Btw, Av's not a bad photographer, eh?                                                                     

Because I Can't Not Write This Down

El has a word for me.  It's "Nyeh-nyeh."  I realized it the other day, as she was crawling around the house after me, saying it over and over.  It dawned on me, suddenly, that that's what she always says when she's following me around or when she's in someone else's arms and she wants to be in mine.  She says a lot of sounds now, including "Dah, dah, dehd," and "Ma, ma, ma," but this is the first sound she's made that specifically refers to something or someone.  That I know of.

Avery started around this age, making sounds that meant something.  Her first word was "Daddy," and for the longest time she referred to both GW and me as Daddy.  It was so cute we didn't want to correct her.

Here are both my little girls, around 8 months old:

 

 

Yet Another Milestone For The New Kid

Today El pulled herself up to a standing position, all by her little self.  She's been working on it for about a week or so.  I gotta say it's been hilarious, in a beyond-cute kind of way, to be sitting on the bed reading Av a story, and watching El try her stunt.  You suddenly see her pink head wobble up from the bottom of the bed, her face a mixture of surprise, delight, and concentration.  She grins big when she makes eye contact with somebody, then she teeters and drops out of sight.  It's the best thing ever.  Well, except for the other thousand things about her that are the best thing ever.  So tonight she pulled herself up and stayed up for a good minute or two.  Av walked at 11 months; maybe El will be a little early too.  She's really getting fast with the crawling, though, so maybe she won't bother for a while.  Who knows.  She does seem to be hitting a lot of milestones all at once - why is she in such a hurry to grow up?  I guess having an older sibling to catch up with is pretty motivating.  I wouldn't know, only had younger.

Now, if we could only convince you that food does not enter the body through one's fist, little Miss Spoon-Grabber!

The most wonderful thing about babies is that babies are wonderful things...

Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs. They're bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, full of fun fun fun! The most wonderful thing about babies is that I'm the only one!

-El the Baby, Guest Blogger
(poetry credit goes to Disney, unless it was A.A. Milne. But probably Disney.)


Mommy's Post:

My favorite baby "things":
1.) Kissing soft cheeks
2.) Hearing their breath up close to your ear when you hold them
3.) Being "kissed" by a baby - in other words, licked and slobbered on, open mouth on the side of your face.
4.) Baby stunts, like launching backwards while in someone's arms, putting blankets over the face on purpose, trying to roll off beds.
5.) Baby belly laughter, everybody's all-time favorite.