Cara is TEN Months

I am TEN months old!

SOMEONE doesn't like to sit still
Anymore, so I just aim for non-blurry pics

I like: Being dropped (but caught), being scared, walking with her sit-to-stand toy, any of her blocks that make noise, music and dancing, puffs/bananas, bath time (which she's always loved, but now that she gets to splash around more she really likes it), and spinning in circles on her butt.

Music Time!

I dislike: Getting my nails clipped, strangers (still), and teeth coming in :(  and finishing my bottles (I believe because of the teething)

I legit thought she might be dead here,
She NEVER sleeps on her back

Sometimes we read to her AND
Take her for walks

Her cute Valentine's Day outfit
Given by Nana (Sweatfield)

I am now: Still in size 9 month clothes, but definitely nothing smaller than that. I can fit in 12 month things, but they are pretty big.

Cute smiles in new clothes

A Typical Day looks like: Pretty much the same as it has been.

For Feedings: 4 ounces of baby food followed by a 6 ounce bottle in the morning (usually half an hour after she wakes up), a 4 ounce pouch of food for lunch around 11:30 followed by a 5 ounce bottle, at 3:00 she gets a 7 ounce bottle to hold her over until dinner, then dinner is at 6 with 2 ounces of baby food (mixed with a Tablespoon of oatmeal) with little bites of our food, and a top off 6 ounce bottle at 7:15

For sleeping, she goes to bed at 8, wakes up around 7 (on weekdays, usually around 8 on weekends), and she recently transitioned from 3 one-hour naps during the day to 2. She was napping from 9:30 to 10:30; 1-2; and then 4:30-5:30, but now she naps from 10-11 and 2-3 and is good until bed time.

When she's not napping or eating she loves to walk, play in her ball pit, and be as destructive as possible. But she really loves nightly activities with us.

This Month I: Got my very first tooth (on the 19th) and my second tooth (around the 21st) so teething pains have been hard, but I'm still a pretty happy baby with all that going on. My food variety has opened widely and I would much rather eat my parent's food rather than my own.

Her first Superbowl with Mom
She loved it :)

She also really likes looking at her own reflection
This was after brushing her teeth one morning

  

Parent's Notes: Getting her first tooth was pretty sad - she normally sleeps just fine throughout the night, but that "morning" she woke up at 4:30 just screaming and crying. This never has happened and it was my night so I went to check on her. I rocked her in the chair and she took one of my fingers and put it in her mouth and I quickly felt the sharpness of the tooth. I went down to get her some infant Tylenol and gave her some, then just rocked her in the chair until she fell asleep and then she did good until her usual wake up time. As sad and hard (rather, exhausting) the teething stage is, I'm so excited for her to get some chompers and we can start giving her real solids.

She definitely got a good upgrade with food this month, since she has teeth she loves chewing on everything she can so her food no longer interests her. She eats it, but she gets excited to finish it so she can have our food. We started giving her little bites so she can feed herself and it's honestly been a highlight of our night to watch her go at it like a little adult.

We had a night where we didn't give her her "top off" bottle before bed so we decided to experiment and see if she would still sleep fine, and she did! We had another time where we didn't give her her lunchtime bottle since we gave her a bunch of bites from our lunch and she did good with that too. So we're learning that she's getting enough with real foods and her baby foods to last her, but since I know the nutrients in the formula are so good for her we aren't in any rush to get rid of the bottle. Luckily she LOVES water in sippy cups and taking drinks of our juice at dinner time so I know weaning her isn't going to be a problem.

Overall, Cara is one of the best babies, but it's really hitting me she's not going to be a baby much longer. 1 year is right around the corner.

Update on last month's goals:

• I really need to work on getting her into swimming lessons still! I think I'd like to start it up once she's a year old.
• Waiving & Clapping: Cara loves to slap, but she doesn't really clap her own hands. She might do a little wave here or there, but nothing concrete. I'd like to get that worked on. She does wave her hands around when she's happy so we think that might be her form of clapping.
• We're going to continue to work on brushing the teeth so that she's so used to it she won't spit out the brush.
• Work on signs still. She isn't signing back, but I feel like it's because she's still getting used to her fine motor development so hopefully we start seeing signs soon.I also realized I can teach her to say please and thank you without feeling like I'm begging her. I have started teaching her to say please and thank you for her puffs (aka Baby Crack!)
• Keep adding foods in to her palate so she isn't a picky eater. So far she loves our food more than hers, but she hasn't hated anything (other than chunky food) so much she spits it out. Fingers crossed she stays like that!

Goals for next month:

• Get her practicing using utensils for dinner.
• Definitely call on swimming lessons to see how to make that work in a few months.
• Even though she definitely knows what we're saying with signs, I'd like to make her do the signs (so we would do it with her hands so she can feel the motions).
• Work on walking more (she's SO close to it!)