Abby - 10 Months

Dearest Abigail,

Wow, little girl, you are in double digits now!  10 months!  This has been such a fun month. You amaze me every day with how happy and so full of endless energy you are. You can really move now.  You crawl so quickly all over the place.  You have this funny looking half crawl thing that you do a lot now where you are on one knee with the other foot flat on the ground. So cute to watch.  You still love walking holding onto fingers and we spend a lot of time circling around the house or the park that way.  You can move those legs fast!  It makes me wonder how soon you will take off on your own.

Along with being able to move around so fast, this month you also figured out how to climb up stairs.  We were sitting outside on our front porch one day early last month when all over a sudden you turned around and crawled right up those three steps.  You didn't even hesitate.  One would have thought you had been practicing.  But I'd never even see you attempt it or look like you were even considering it before.  You definitely took me by surprise!


With all your moving, we have finally had to make some changes to our apartment. All of our bottom shelves in bookcases are now taken up mostly by your toys and other things have had to move higher.  Unfortunately there aren't many places for the displaced things to go...  My biggest worry is all our hardwood floor. Any little fall hurts. Even when I am trying to watch you closely, there are many times when I can't catch you in time.  I don't really know what more we can do about that though.

You love playing on and around us. One day you suddenly started using our legs as a tunnel to walk through and you also love climbing over and through the obstacle courses we make for you with our legs on the floor.  One of your favorite games is when I lie on my back on the ground and you get to climb all over me and give me lots of wet kisses and grab at my nose.

We definitely spend lots of time outdoors now.  The weather is amazing, our apartment is tiny, and you just love being outside.  We go running every morning, then after your morning nap we take off somewhere - beach, park, picnic, long walks, etc.  We usually also spend some time chasing the neighbor cat (you love him!) and playing on our front porch.  And more walks if needed. You get quite a few comments on how tan you apparently look.  Hopefully you aren't getting too much sun! Maybe we should break out the sunscreen more often...

When we are outside you love to collect treasures.  Usually this is a rock that you will pick up and hold onto tightly. That is, until you find a bigger, prettier rock to switch it out for.  It's funny watching you try to pick up these huge rocks (comparative to your size), you can sure be determined. You've also brought home pine cones, pieces of bark, and other random plant parts. Our front area is a treasure trove for you. Lots and lots of rocks. That and the cat puts you in baby heaven whenever we step outside.

We have had some improvements in your sleep which has been wonderful.  You have started to pretty consistently take a 2 hour nap in the mornings. Soooo nice. The afternoons are still hit and miss, though I think we are getting it down a little bit.  You nights have been a bit better.  You even had your very first night ever of sleeping 8 hours straight. Only happened once though. You have still been harder to put down at the beginning of naps, which hopefully gets better!

You decided to celebrate turning ten months with waking up with your first real fever. Its been hovering around 102 to 103 for the last two days. You have sure had your share of Tylenol and cuddling. You might make us break our healthy baby streak by having to take you to the doctor for the first time! Let's not do that, just get better baby girl!

There is so much I could say about you. You are just so wonderful and amazing. I love you!

Love,

Your Mamma

And, of course, some more cute pictures!

On Saturdays Daddy usually joins us on our run