Month Nine was soooooo fine

Dearest Keeley,

This week you turned 10 months old. Ten months. Ten. You have officially been outside my cozy womb for longer than you were inside it. Ten. Double digits. You will never be in single-digit months again. (Sniff, sniff.) You will, however, be in double digits until you are, like, 8 or 9. Right? My math might be a bit off. Anyhoo, this has been a wonderful, wonderful month. Well, except for the part where you fell off our bed. That was bad. But you were okay and the rest of the month was just mah-velous.

We are finally on somewhat of a routine. I can pretty much predict what times things will probably happen during the day. I can tell other people what times to do things when you stay with them. I spent so long worrying whether you should be on a routine or not and here we've happily found ourselves in one without any sort of pressuring or crying or bribery. Of course, just when I think I might have things down, you like to mix it up. Apparently, you think it's much fun to keep me on my toes.

You have been napping well (thank goodness) and playing hard. You love crawling all over the house, seeing what there is to get into. You get excited whenever you find the Baby Bjorn. I think you try to figure out how to put it on. You love getting in it and going for a walk with Buddy. You kick your feet and laugh and laugh. I love it. It will be sad when you’re to big for it. (Which won’t be too long at the rate you’re going.)

There are so many things you love to do. You love playing peekaboo - both hiding yourself and when other people hide. You love it when people chase you around. You crawl as fast as you can then suddenly stop, sit, and look back like, "you there yet?" and then you get right back to crawling. You LOVE it when someone, anyone says, "I'm gonna get you." Love it. You practically start laughing the moment you hear it. You try as hard as you can to get away and laugh, laugh, laugh when you're caught. Oh, and not just a laugh, a squealing type of laugh that's part scream, part laugh. Kind of like a cross between a hyena and a screech owl. A sound truly unique to you.

Meal time has taken on a new degree of difficulty: you want to feed yourself. You’re actually pretty good at it. You know to dip the spoon into the bowl and bring it to your mouth. Of course, you like to stick your fingers in there along with the spoon so that makes it a bit messy. You’re really very excited about the whole event. I love how proud you seem of yourself whenever you do something new.

So far, you’ve met very few foods you don’t like. You eat pretty much any fruit and vegetable put in front of you. Also included in the fave food list are: Cheerios, yogurt, and anything you can pick up yourself. Cottage cheese and lumpy things aren’t your first choice. And you make that known. Loudly. With facial expressions. If you eat something with cottage cheese you make this gagging noise and stick your cottage cheese coated tongue out like, "Get this vile stuff OUT of my mouth."

Speaking of, you are developing quite the temper. If something isn’t to your liking - you let us know. Loudly. With facial expressions. If you are doing something and you don’t want to be picked up you slump over and go limp. I don’t know how you know, but it is almost impossible to pick you up that way. If we walk out of the room for a second you wail and cry. You have this high-pitched wail/scream thing that you’ll do if you’re even the tiniest bit upset about something. Usually you get over it pretty fast though, so that’s good. I have a feeling that there are some rough times ahead.

I still love going to get you when you wake up in the morning or from a nap. You are just so happy. You are practically jumping in your crib. When you see me you crawl from one side to the other as fast as you can. Usually you fall on your face a couple times because your limbs can’t keep up with your excitement. It's one of my favorite times of the day. And I find myself thinking this to myself more and more. "This is one of my favorite parts of the day." It only took me ten months to get used to this, but now? Now, it's wonderful. Whatever the possibly temper-filled future holds, I'll gladly face it with you.

Love you,

Mommy