10 Months Old

Jillian is 10 months old today! It blows me away to think that she's been out of the womb longer than she was in it. Pregnancy felt like a long journey, and these first ten months of parenthood passed in the blink of an eye. I've been told it just keeps getting faster. Last week, I had a very unexpected emotional moment as I was packing away all of the clothes Jillian has outgrown this summer. Even though I have done this several times before as she moved through sizes, this time felt different. I honestly felt sad, and had an overwhelming urge to just try and bottle her up to keep her small forever! She is growing, thriving, and is beginning to turn into a little girl. I notice that she is starting to thin out--no more chubby cheeks or rubber-band wrists, and those delectable thigh rolls are dissipating. She continues to take several steps here and there, and is really picking up her level of expression and comprehension of language. Here are a few examples I'd like to record:

-This morning she saw a picture of Matt on my phone, pointed at him and said, "dah-dee". She did this again when she saw a different picture of him in her photo album--I did not prompt her in either instance.

-Earlier in the week, I said "have a good day, sweetie" to her as I left her at daycare. She looked up at me, smiled, and said "bye bye".

-Every night when I run her bath, she stands at the side of the tub peering inside as I undress her. Lately she has started shouting "bah!" She says "baba" on other occasions, but this seems to be a very concerted effort to imitate the word "bath" using just one syllable.

-At bedtime, I tell her "it's time to go night-night". She responds by saying "nigh nigh"

-And my personal favorite occurred when she woke up at 4 a.m. last week and was crying. I waited a few minutes and it became clear that she was not going to go back to sleep. When I went in the room and walked over to her crib she looked at me and said "mama". That is the first (and so far, the only) time she has addressed me as "mama". It was precious, and almost made me forget it was 4 a.m. Almost :).

So what else does a 10 month old do, you ask? Many, many exciting things! Jillian is usually busy doing the following...

Experimenting with toys. Here she decides to see if this bucket will fit on her big noggin...nope! But it does provide excellent acoustics for "singing", she discovered.


Trying new foods, and yes, still making dramatic faces. Here you will see her impression of hard-boiled egg yolk.


Keeping up with the "big kids". Here she plays, or rather eats, Barbies with Kyra.


Learning to play nicely with friends, instead of pulling hair and poking eyes. Here she and Jayson negotiate who will play with a favorite toy. What you do not see is them climbing on and pushing each other away. (and yes, there was hair pulling involved)


Swinging the day away. You will notice she is wearing a jacket (with a hood!) in late August. Do not get me started!


Learning some table manners. Here she tests out her skill in self-feeding an apple-sweet potato puree. She is very proud, indeed.


Dancing! What day is complete without this fun expression of happiness?


And, thankfully: SLEEPING! I pray that the two nap/day continues for awhile longer. She certainly expends enough energy to justify it! Ahhh, sweet, peaceful slumber.

You sure are a bundle of fun, Jilly Bean! We are enjoying the ride....