Clare is 10 Months

Clare is 10 months!

Curious...

and very active!

Leading up to 10 months with Clare has been such fun! She is an active little lady and very curious. She's a walker!! That is the big highlight from the past month. She was taking steps beginning in 8 months and I knew in a few weeks that she would be walking. You could see the determination. Sure enough, 9 months old and walking.

Clare is waving bye bye, shakes her head no, no no, imitates noises like sniffing and repeats sounds like dada, baba, mama, and other funny babbles, scrunches her nose being silly, and even has a bit of feistiness in her. I took something from her the other day (probably a Lego piece) and she got mad! She even knocked her head on the floor in protest, which didn't go over well. Eesh!

Clare wants to keep up with her big brother and sister. She likes to chase them and sit in whatever toy mess they're creating. We started My Gym classes and she is really enjoying them. Being around other babies her age is great - a nice break from the older kids.

My Gym with Clare

Get this crazy out of my crib!

Playing with Grace

Always being carried around... oh boy...

Playroom playing and mess making

Grace probably entertains Clare the most at the moment. Grace is relentless with her. Always grabbing her, picking her up, trying to put her on furniture. A sitter said the other night... Grace really loves Clare, but she is really rough with her! Yes. It's constant. I'm always telling her to be gentle and to put her down. Clare NEVER gets upset with her. The picture above of Clare crying in the crib was only because she wanted me to get her out instead of taking a picture. Nearly every morning Grace jumps in her crib and plays with her. William on the other hand is very gentle with Clare and patient. Clare wants to get into everything and William is now at the stage where he wants to concentrate on whatever he's playing with, so he will ask for me to remove her. When he leaves for school he kisses her on the head in the car and I'll look over now and then to see him rubbing her head or giving her a hug. It is very sweet. All on his own accord. He helps me by bringing diapers down or grabbing a bottle for her. The three of them are wonderful. We haven't had any moments of jealousy or resentfulness at all.

What else is going on with Clare... I'll do some bullet points to keep it easy.

• Loves bath time and water in general. She tries to stick her feet in the pool when we're outside letting the kids swim.
• Loves food. She would skip over a bottle for food. She has been very open with trying food. Bananas are a favorite. Avocado. Baked beans the other night were a hit. Black beans too. Cheese. Fruit and veggie packets are a hit too - thank goodness because those are easy and so healthy. 
• Naps at 9:30/10a and naps again at 1:30/2p. The morning nap was getting later and Daylight Savings should help with bringing that earlier. Her afternoon nap is always longer than the morning nap. Bedtime is 7-7:30p, but she is very good at staying up later if need be. Up around 7:30 is my guess, but she is very quiet when she wakes. Plays with a couple stuffed animals and waits patiently for me - or usually Grace to come in.

Eating a banana

Clare's first road trip happened earlier in the month. A hurricane came for Florida (Hurricane Matt interestingly enough as Matt left for Australia just as this was happening) and we decided to leave Orlando for Naples to stay at my dad's condo. The west coast of Florida was suppose to be fine. We sat in traffic for 7 hours (Naples is 3.5-4 hours away) and sure enough the hurricane wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated in Orlando. We bunked up at Grandpa Tony's place for a couple days and that didn't go as planned because red tide hit the west coast during this hurricane. Well red tide is gross. There were dead fish everywhere! I had planned to visit the beach for a couple days and relax, but as soon as we got to the beach William started screaming, "Get me out of here!!" The drive down was so traumatizing that we stuck around and found kid friendly things to do in Naples like the zoo and the children's museum. Both pretty fun, but not the most relaxing trip! Amazingly, the kids were very good. It was tiresome though and we were glad the drive home only took four hours. This was a very eventful few days, so here are the pictures from that adventure!

We finally arrived... 7 hours later!

Passed out in the biggest pack and play ever.

Breakfast the next morning

Hard at coloring work

Red tide strikes! Dead fish EVERYWHERE!

William NOT happy about the fish!

Lounging by the pool instead

Naples Zoo

Too hot for footies

Children's museum

Water table outside

Climbing on the outdoor playground

I fit inside the side table!

Clare is experiencing her first "fall" and did a couple fun activities. We went with friends to the pumpkin patch. A lovely sibling picture didn't really turn out... see below. But we tried. Clare loved the hay and I had to keep removing it from her mouth. Then she came to the kid's Fall Festival for a little bit and did such a good job tagging along. There wasn't anything for her to do, but I'm sure she enjoyed the sights. 

Clare up front

First pumpkin patch

No one wanted to participate in this picture.

She kept scrunching her nose!

Clare's first fall festival

And the weather has been perfect for afternoons at the park. She is loving the playground and wants to get into everything. Also eat the mulch and stick acorns in her mouth! 

Playground fun! And the nose scrunch :)

Cooler weather means sweats!

Seesaw

By the end of the day Clare is ready for bed. She's active and fun loving. She is such a dream. So agreeable and easy going, but determined to hang with us all. I can't believe she is nearly 1. This year has gone by at lighting speed. Stay little, baby Clare! We love you! 

Clare likes Pooh - a gift for William from Ali

This day she shopped with mama till she dropped

10 Months for Grace!

The day she turned 10 months!

Happy 10 month birthday, Grace! You are a super smiley, funny girl that already at 10 months, will not let William get the last say - easily. We think you are going to give William a run for the money as you get bigger and more able.

Pretty girl!

10 month smile

Grace is still the sweetest girl and she smiles the biggest smile at everyone. She does the funniest things too... like when you come in after nap time, she sometimes peers over her bumper waiting then as soon as she spots you makes a very dramatic dive to hide beneath the level of the bumper. When you appear over the side, she smiles and laughs very hard. She loves to be chased and play peek-a-boo. So funny! A fun spot to hide is underneath furniture or in-between someone's ankles.

ALWAYS getting into something. She likes to hide!

Diaper on the head is funny!

Hi there!

Grace is down to 3 bottles a day and looooves her food. She wants to eat everything for the most part. Same as before - if there was a bottle in front of her or spaghetti, she'd grab the spaghetti first. Or any food for that matter. We were saying the other day we feel like we skipped the whole baby feeding purees stage with her. It was mostly a time issue and a mess issue, since William eats when she eats, but she's been great at picking up her own food and feeding herself. In fact, if you try to feed her something now, she moves her head and grabs it with her own hand to feed herself. So it's been a lot of small, mushy bites for Grace, and it's usually whatever we're eating. She has 8 teeth already and she's very good at taking bites already! William would smush as much as possible into his mouth to the point of gaging, but Grace takes a bite and tears food all the time. Must be a girl vs. boy thing!

Gets the reading from William. She was flipping the pages.

Grace naps twice a day and the third nap is really gone at this point. On the rare occasion she is very moody then we put her in her bed a third time during dinner. But for the most part, she's happy to make it until 6:15ish then gets a bit cranky... ready for bath time and bed time.

Speaking of the nightly ritual, she loves bath time. When the water comes on in the tub, she comes a running! Not literally running, but will grab the side and try to throw herself in. She tries to climb in and we have to quickly get her undressed and ready to bathe. Her and William take baths together and that makes the process very easy.

Hugs for dadadada

Still a great sleeper and wakes up at 7:00/7:15a every day. She hasn't had any sleep in days really... but she is happy to sit and play with her favorite stuffed animals till you're ready to get her out. The pink fluffy bear and the pink flower bear are the two faves! She also still has an affinity for the white Little Giraffe blanket - same type as William's.

This post is two weeks late and at 10 months to the day, Grace was taking steps. Her first steps were at 9 months old! And I'll have to add another post with more details, but since then she is now officially walking. She has made the conscious decision to get back up after falling to keep walking instead of reverting to the crawl. It was after the 4th of July that the desire to walk full-time seemed to kick in.

Standing and walking in the mountains

One of her first standing pictures in June - clapping at the same time.

Grace loves William and playing with other kids. At the Y daycare, the sitters tell me she tries to get into everyone's business and they have to move her into a smaller area to protect her because she's prepared to get trampled in order to play with the big kids. She needs to get better at walking and then she can hang with the older kids!

Waiting on William's swim lesson

May I read this book, William? She probably snatched it 2 seconds later.

Well she's almost 11 months now! Who knows what she will be up to in the next two weeks. Likely running! We are waiting for first words, though she says dadadadada and mamamama. Sometimes I think I hear her say "Hi there" and we do say "Hi there" a lot to her, so maybe she is imitating the sounds. Till next month!

Happy 10 month, Grace!

Walking attempts

12.12.12 marks the day William made his first walking attempt. We were sitting in the family room that evening on the ground with him and he was standing by Matt. I held out my hands sitting a couple feet away and he took 3 steps wobbling toward me! So funny and I wish we caught the big moves on video! Then at Gymboree the next day I think he was inspired by the majority of walkers in the class. He kept taking 2-3 steps here and there! I wonder how long it will be until we have a walker. He's so fast crawling that I'm not sure I see walking taking #1 mode of transportation for a little bit of time... but we'll see. Go William Go!

He's very good at standing by himself and he'll pick up pretty heavy toys, shake them and still be standing all alone. The balance thing is pretty much down pat. I guess continuing to balance while moving forward (or backward) is another thing though.

Here's some pictures from William at Gymboree. He LOVES that class!

10 Months

10 months old!

10 whole months! William is extremely busy nowadays to say the least. He crawls very quickly, he's bound to be climbing the stairs if you aren't watching, opening cabinets and drawers is a breeze (and leaving a big mess behind), funny noises galore (the owl noise is popular now "oooo oooo..."), standing by himself, and then walking with help, and so on. He has a lot of different expressions from raising his eyebrows to furrowing his brow when he's confused. And he definitely shows his emotions (he spots a bottle before drinking it and it becomes waterworks time). He's waving bye bye sometimes, he has a 6th tooth coming in, clapping is still lots of fun and I swear he's grown several more inches since he is wearing 12-18 month clothing quite comfortably -- Nevermind he is able to reach things I never thought possible... such as kitchen gadgets hanging off the edge of the counter.


Soaring high

He loves bathtime and splashing in the tub.

William is not a picky eater and begs for food nearly as bad as Maggie!



Clap! It's dad's birthday!

His quiet time aka bottle time

William shakes his head "no" - but he doesn't associate the shaking of his head with no. Well, initially he didn't and now I think he may. It all started with me making him laugh and it clearly made an impression, since it stuck. I shook my head "no" at Maggie a few days ago and he looked at me and shook his head at me and burst out laughing. It is pretty funny. I'm trying to nod my head "yes" more often in hopes he'll be more of a "yes" baby than a "no" baby!

Ahhhhhh! Banging toys together is fun!

Pump up the volume

One of his many expressions

It's not always smiles :) Most of the time it is though!

What else is going on in William's world?

• Loves to feed himself bits of food... from string cheese to chicken to scrambled eggs. He still loves pureed food too. We haven't found one food he doesn't like. He even wanted a piece of feta from my salad the other day. I didn't think that would be a winner, but then he asked for more.
• Moving those bottles down too... only a couple more months and they'll be gone for good! I may be just as sad as William when that happens. Bottles are easy! 
• Walking with assistance as you may have seen in one of my last posts. He loves walking with the cart and he enjoys pushing other toys across the floor like the cart.
• Babyproofing gone wild! Gates and latches everywhere.
• Mama and Dada are the only "words" I can make out. Sometimes I think he understands me. If I ask him to come to me then he usually comes back. 
• Two naps a day still, but the pm nap looks looks like it's going from 2p to 3p. The afternoon nap is usually his longest most of the time around 1 1/2-2 hours long.
• Wants to be chased. He gets a kick out of it when he turns his head like he's going to crawl off and you pretend to go after him. He also likes to play peek a boo.  

So much is happening as you can see! He's getting so big and so much more in tune with the world. The next month will be fun with Christmas coming up. I'm sure he will enjoy all the bright lights and music that come with the season (that's another thing - he loves music and rocks whenever a good tune comes on). We are looking forward to December and the end of 2012. What a great year it's been so far. Only getting better.

Happy 10 months, William!