Ten Months!

This month has been filled with new things!

- Table food - She has been eating like a champ. Her first meal off the table was salmon, bread and mixed vegetables. She loved all of it! Since then she has tried all kinds of things and in a moment of weakness, we let her consume 2.5 hush puppies and a piece of fried okra. This clearly was before the get healthy campaign started. We were in Huntsville at the time so we told her it was a special treat. We are avoiding anything dairy since she seems to be allergic. We are hoping that she will grow out of that soon or else she will be drinking soy milk when she turns one. She eats soy yogurt every day and loves it! We have to hide it from her until she has eaten everything else. As of now, we don't know of a food that she doesn't like so I hope that she stays that way.

- Crawling like a crazy woman - She was off to a slow start but now she is all over the place. I will never forget the expression on her face when she crawled from the living room to the kitchen for the first time, she was so proud of herself. We left her in the living room to play and were cleaning up after supper and we looked up and saw the biggest smile on her face as she was headed straight towards us.

- Pulling up on everything - She pulled up for the first time when we were in the hotel in Huntsville. We forgot the pac-n-play so we rented this tiny little wrought iron crib and she pulled up within a few minutes of her nap time. We were amazed! Since that time, she is pulling up on everything, our clothes, the coffee table, doors, you name it. She also is very proud that she has accomplished this. I have heard horror stories of babies standing up in their cribs and crying because they didn't know how to get back down. Fortunately, this hasn't been a problem and she falls on her butt when she is ready to get down. We have had some face bumps and big tears but nothing too serious.

- Center of attention - Mary Beth really enjoys being the center of attention. She really comes alive when people are around and paying attention to her. We recently were at Lindsey Fifield's baby shower and she had the most fun with everyone. I am relieved to see that she loves people as I worry a little bit about her lack of social interaction since she is not in day care. It looks like she is going to avoid being socially awkward after all! People in stores are especially fond of her and she puts a smile on everyone's face.

- Coming up with new tricks - She has started making up her own tricks. One of my favorites is she will pull her arm out of the sleeve of her pajamas and grin so big when you ask her where her arm is. She then shoots her arm into the sleeve and laughs. it's very cute. I have been trying to capture this on camera but no luck yet. She tends to freeze up when I pull out the camera.


- Personality - Mary Beth's personalty is getting stronger every month. She is independent, creative, hilarious, sweet, happy go lucky and so much fun.


- Weaning - About a month ago Mary Beth started getting really distracted when nursing and she was really hard to feed. Over the past week, she has quit nursing pretty much all together. This has caused much panic on my part because she hasn't had any formula since her first few days in the hospital and she is allergic to milk. I called the pediatrician and they gave us a few samples of soy formula. We have been giving it to her mixed with breast milk and she seems to like it fine. I really thought that I was going to have to work on weaning her but she is no longer interested. I was hoping to make it though the first year but ten months isn't all bad. I am regretting using an ounce of breast milk in her rice cereal every day. I am wishing I had all of that milk now. Oh well, I am going to try to make the 50 ounces that I have left last for a while.

There seems to be so much more but I can't think of it now. I feel like she has changed so much this month and has grown out of the baby stage. I am in no rush for her to walk but I'm sure it will be soon. We love this little girl so much and are having the time of our lives!

I'm ten months!

Chillin with her buddy the lamb

So excited to meet all of the Saunders' family at the reunion

Full as a tick after eating ham, peas and corn pudding.

Cousin Owen turned two this month. Happy Birthday cousin Owen!

Feeling like a grown up with her own plate of big people food.

Don't even try to leave me behind!

Tiny crib at the hotel in Huntsville and first time standing.

We promised her a funnel cake but the fair was rained out. It's just as well as she really didn't need three fried items in the same weekend.

About to do a split while enjoying her music table.

She has her eye on the prize

So proud to be standing up!

The pacifiers are the reason she started standing up. She likes to toss them out of her crib and then gaze longingly in their direction which usually leads to screaming.