10 Months Ago Today

Little Claire Annette has reached ten months!
It's amazing how fast time goes by.

So, we won't waste time trying to catch up. We're just going to jump in right where we are, here at 10 months!

The biggest development in the last month?
She walks!
On Friday June 1st she decided that she wanted to walk more than crawl. So she got control of her excitement and kept on walking. When she fell down, she would stick her little bum in the air as she pushed back up to her feet to keep going. Her balance improves every day.

If you aren't looking at her, Claire will cock her head to the side and bend so that her face is right in front of yours like she's saying, "hey mom! What are you doing? You ok?" And when you notice that she's looking at you, she gets this HUGE grin on her face that just screams, "Hi mom! I'm so happy that you're looking at me!" a lot like this picture from 8 months.

She waves, claps, and gives high fives, hugs and kisses.
She also just started raising her hands high above her head so that we will exclaim that she is so big. Then she smiles and giggles.
She likes to have laughing rounds occasionally. If she hears you laugh, she'll start laughing too. It's so funny, and she'll keep laughing because you're laughing, but it's a very forced, fake laugh. A little gravel-ly, even, which seems odd for an infant to have a gravel-ly tone.

She begs to be picked up at pretty much every moment.

She has recently taken an interest in stacking things/putting things together properly. When she's done drinking from her bottle, she reaches and grunts for the cap so she can try to put it over the nipple. Her hand-eye coordination is definitely improving!
She similarly has started trying to stack her stacking cups rather than just knock them down.

After we change her diaper she excitedly holds the dirty one as we carry her to the garbage where she reluctantly releases the soiled diaper in exchange for excited cheers and a high five.

She loves the swings at the park and is slowly warming up to the slide.

You can see her top teeth in this one

She LOVES music and bounces and raises one of her arms above her head any time that she is enjoying the tunes.

She doesn't say anything when you ask her, but she does whisper the words "dada" when Peter comes home as she waves "hello," "mama" when I'm ignoring her and she's crying to be picked up, and I SWEAR she copied me and said "vegetable" the other day when I was pulling out a jar of Beechnut's Mixed Vegetables puree--one of the ONLY vegetables I can get her to eat. She even said it one more time for Peter to hear. Two witnesses!

She's gotten a lot more picky about eating. Besides the pureed mixed vegetables, she also likes bananas and raspberries. 

She has two teeth on the bottom and still only 3 on top. I've been saying it for some time now that the last tooth to the left of her middle teeth was breaking through, but alas, it still has not come through. I can now feel the tip of it pushing out, but who knows when it will actually break all the way through the gums. It's no matter though. Claire still has an adorable smile that is now toothy with little toddler teeth.

She's only recently started using her teeth as tools. Although she's had at least four teeth for well over a month now, Claire has needed a good deal of encouragement to use them to bite her food. Obviously this lesson was not restricted to food only, but has also crossed to toys, clothing, body parts, and anything that goes into her mouth.

Speaking of things that go into Claire's mouth, she's become ridiculously obsessed with shoving her fingers down her throat so that she gags, and sometimes throws up. Most of the time I try to just pull her hand out of her throat and redirect her attention, but sometimes I am caught off-guard and shout "no" while pulling her hand out. This usually evokes raised eyebrows and a high-pitched "huh" with a shoulder shrug from Claire. She obviously does not associate my alarm and direct and decisive "no" with inappropriate and unacceptable behavior that is not to be repeated yet. Oh well. Maybe one day she'll get it.

So I know that's a lot, but she's just learning so much and is such a busy and active girl. People were asking me what we do at home to get her so "advanced." I kind of laughed because really I just let her have alone play time and together play time. Playing by herself doesn't always last very long, but usually long enough for me to step out of the mommy scene and into the few emails I've received and blogs I read. So basically a max of 10 minutes!

We sure do love our little Claire Annette!