10 months old

My gracious. That last month slipped away before I even had time to notice. I feel like it was just last week that I was writing about Abby turning 9 months, and now, here we are, into...the double digits. (dum dum DUM!)

I feel like a lot of what I write on these monthly updates could be copy and pasted from month to month. She's growing so much, she's learning new things, she's so much fun right now and we have so much fun together. I'm sad that she's growing but happy at the same time. It's bittersweet, that's for sure.

I think more than ever before, I feel a little more melancholy about this milestone. 10 months seems So. Old. I mean, there are only 2 months left until she turns ONE. Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to think about that. And yet, it's knocking at our door and nothing I can do can stop this train. It is all beginning to go by too fast. Try as I have to savor each day and to enjoy each moment - I feel like things are starting to pick up speed.

The other day Kyle and I were talking about how big Abby has gotten lately and how much she's learned and changed. At the same moment, he spoke what I was thinking (but was afraid to say outloud) He said, "she's not a baby anymore" And, he's right. And, that's sad. But, it's a good thing too (ugh, parenting is so confusing)

So, anyway. Abby at 10 months old. She is communicating more than ever before. She says "ba-ba" and waves bye when you say it. She will wave when she hears anybody say the word "hi" including anybody on TV or Bert out of her toy remote control. She claps for herself and says "yaaay" after almost any (and seemingly every) action. Low self esteem is definitely not a problem.

Somewhere along the way she has stopped saying Mama and started calling me bob-bob. I'm really not sure what that's about, but it will never be fixed because Kyle thinks it hilarious and reinforces it whenever she says "hi bob-bob" and waves at me.

But the best thing are kisses! She now understands what kiss means and if you ask "can I have a kiss" She'll plant on one you. It's great! Of course, sometimes she's not in the mood, and she'll instead scrunch up her face and turn her head and make some unattractive grunting noise. And if you get too greedy and ask for too many kisses in a row, she'll throw a fit. But, there is nothing better than picking her up in the morning and her leaning to give you a kiss before you even ask for one. This is definitely my favorite new development.

I'm not sure how much she weighs in now, but I'll try to remember to weigh her in the next day or so. I'm sure she's still below 20 and by guess would be about 18 lbs...but I'll let you know soon. She went into the doc today to get the second part of her flu shot, but no other updates from the appointment. We were in and out.

She still mostly drags herself around, but in the past day or two she has starting crawling very small distances. Mostly she will crawl a step or two to help her get to some surface that she's trying to pull up on. She's a pro at cruising and pulling up and would much rather spend her day standing than sitting. She's figured out how to lower herself down as well, which makes life better in general.

What else? We listen to music at dinner time and when one song stops, so does she. She'll stop eating and look at you and then look at the speakers and make a small noise that means "hey, the music stopped, where'd it go?" As soon as the next song starts, she's happy and eating again.

She completely gets the remote control. She knows which one is the real one and she knows that the buttons make the TV change. She'll find it and hit it, and then look at the tv. If nothing happens, she'll do it several more times. It's cute. She loves the remote. loves it.

She also loves her books, but most of all her brown bear, brown bear book. This was the first one I ever read to her, but its got normal pages and is more fragile than many of her other books. But, she loves it. Tonight, we read it three times and then I put it on the floor and tried to read her some other books, but she would have none of it. She practically jumped from my arms to go get the brown bear book. She was happy once she got it. It's the only one she shows such a preference for.

All in all, she is doing well. She is more fun than ever and I am having a blast being her mom. I always think that this month was better than the last - and I think that is still holding true...this whole mom thing just keeps getting better. Even though its going too fast.

Here are some pictures from a few days ago when we all went to the park. Enjoy.