dear baby a,

You’re 10 months old today!!

 I can hardly even believe it. Just stop growing up, please! Here is what you are up to as of today:

-You are crawling on hands and knees now. Finally. You've been belly crawling for a while, but you just found out this week that crawling on all fours is a lot faster and takes a lot less work. Not to mention, it’s super cute to see your little bum in the air, everywhere you go.
-You pull yourself up to everything these days. Your walker, your changing table, a basket, my leg. EVERYTHING. You can usually get out of it, but on the rare occasion that you can’t, you freak out. A lot.
-I found out today that you hate grass. You cried every time I put you on it, but you were perfectly fine on the cement. Ya weirdo.
-You have gotten to the point that I think you know when dad has been gone for most of the day and when he comes home, you get excited. Most of the time you smile and are super giggly, but sometimes you even put your head on his shoulder! That’s actually a really big deal in this house.
-Speaking of which, you’ve been really cuddly this week and I love it. For the past few nights, I haven’t been feeding you when you wake up at night {which has been a lot because you’re teething.}. Instead, I just give you your binky and cuddle you and you put your head on my chest and fall right back to sleep. There have been times where it’s 1 in the morning and I know I should go back to bed, but I just have to sit and soak up the moment with you for ten minutes. I’m sad that you don’t feel good, but it does my heart good to get some snuggles in with you!
-You have 2 and 1/2 teeth. That 3rd one should break through any day now! I think we're all pretty excited about it. For more reasons than one.
-I think you’re addicted to Cafe Rio just as much as I am.
-You’ve gotten really big into pointing lately. Half the time, I don’t know what you’re pointing at, but it’s like you want me to notice every little thing around me. I love seeing that tiny little finger pop up.
-You’re really into ordering Copper around. Or at least that’s what it looks like. You will point at him and yell, but the weird thing is, you don’t do it to either dad or me. Just Cop. You love him so much. He just tolerates you.
-You have ridiculously tiny feet. You’re still in size 0-3 month shoes. I keep buying you size 3-6 because I know you’ll grow into them and all, but as for now, your feet keep slipping out of them and it’s kind of annoying. Where did you get your tiny feet from?!
-If I put socks on your feet, I can guarantee that they will be off of them in a matter of seconds. I rarely will open the car door to get you out of your carseat and see you with socks still on. It’s okay though. I’m not a socks girl either.
-You love going down the stairs, backwards. Your doctor said that now that you’re crawling, one of the first things we need to do is to teach you how to properly go down the stairs - on your belly with your feet first. You can’t do it on your own yet because you’re kind of a shorty, but every time I show you how to do it, you think it’s the funniest thing ever.
-You motivate me to keep the kitchen clean. I can’t leave you to play with your toys in the living room when I have stuff to do in the kitchen anymore. You want to be right by my side and of course, you manage to find every piece of food {or not food} on the floor and it goes right into your mouth. Gross.
-You love books. Reading stories with Dad is seriously one of your favorite times of the day. You like turning the pages for him.
-You’re slowly learning ‘nose’, ‘ear’, and ‘mouth’. You’ve known ‘nose’ for a while and will point to mine when I say it, but you haven’t quite caught onto the other two yet. You mostly just like to point them out, even when I don’t say them. I will be looking at you and you will grab my face and fling it to the side, just so you can touch my ear. Or you’ll poke me directly in the eye. That’s always fun. You love that my eyes open and close.
-I bought you a picnic basket for Easter with play food and cups and plates and your favorite thing about it is taking everything out and scattering it all over the living room. Same with the remote console downstairs. You don’t give up on that thing until every last item is taken out of it.
-You can’t hold an ear plug without it going directly into your mouth. And that’s just gross.

That’s all that I can think of as of now. I can’t believe how much you are growing and learning. It’s exciting to see the new phases that are happening, but it’s breaking my heart that you are slowly becoming more of a toddler and less of a baby. :( I sure do love you, sweet pea!

Love,

Mama