10 Months!

Ahhh....double digits!  We're so close to the big first birthday.  It's so bittersweet.  {And I realize this post is late, but when the 26th falls on a weekend, it's always harder to get the post done, and this was an extra busy, long weekend.}

These pictures are getting so incredibly hard to take....that one was the first and only great shot I got yesterday.

Riley is taking after her big brother in the peanut club.  She was doing great in her growth until recently and has dropped in the percentiles, so it's just goes to show that Jarrod and I just make little babies.  She probably weighs about 17.5lbs right now and is wearing mostly 12 month clothes.  Her sleep has gone downhill majorly thanks to tooth #7 and #8 that are making their appearance.  She is still putting herself to sleep most nights, but is back to a lot of night wakings and usually needs us to help her go back to sleep.  For a while, we were only having 1-2 wake-ups through the night; now we're averaging 3-4.  Poor little girl.  Poor Mommy and Daddy! 

She's eating mostly table foods now, and while she's not gagging as much as Gavin did, she's also not eating as much as I'd like.  A lot of food ends up on the floor for Shirley.  Most mornings include a breakfast of Cheerios and bananas, or toast with Mommy.  Some of her favorite foods right now are ham, bagels (or any bread, really...wonder where she gets that from?), yogurt (but only with fruit and cinnamon mixed in), sweet potatoes, and cheese.  She loves some of the 'snacks' made for babies - puffs, yogurt melts, etc. - and Mommy loves the pouch foods for when we're out and about.  Feeding her purees is harder now since she likes to feed herself.  She loves to drink water out of a straw, but isn't a fan of drinking formula right now from a cup.  I'm curious to see how she does when we transition to whole milk.

She's doing an amazing job at trying to walk.  Not only is Riley using her push toy like crazy, but she will now walk when I'm just holding one hand.  She crawls all around this house, and even outside in the grass....something her brother never did when he was her age.  She LOVES to play with her brother.  She'll pull herself up to him, usually pulling his shorts down as she does, and loves to lay her head on him and wrestle.  They're so friggin' cute together!  One of her most favorite things to do is bug Gavin when he's eating at the little table....she goes right up and tips his cup over or steals his food.

Riley's very vocal these days.  She's in a huge screaming phase - so much so that she sounds hoarse right now because she's lost her voice between screaming and her crying fits.  She makes this funny sound right now that is really high pitched, almost sounds like she's gasping for air, but she does it when she gets really excited and has a huge smile on her face.  She's also been covering her ears up lately, which we think is funny because it looks like she's telling us she's had enough of all then noise she's making.  Most of the time, she'll wave bye-bye, and she gives lots of kisses on demand.  She loves tipping the chairs over from the little table and uses it them like a little climber - she'll crawl under the legs, stand on it, push it across the room, etc.

It seems like more and more, we have little signs of how she's inching her way closer to toddlerhood.  We switched her to her big convertible seat last week and it makes her seem so much older, even though she looks tiny in it.  We had to install locks on all the cabinets, because she was regularly emptying out all the food from the kitchen cabinets and all the extra shampoo/soap/etc. in the bathroom.  Riley knows when she's doing something she's not supposed to be doing, because she will look right at us and smile while she's doing it.  If we walk toward her, she books it the opposite direction. 

Our baby girls is growing up so quickly.  I love how she's becoming more of a Daddy's girl...she loves playing with him on the floor and he gets in the big bathtub with her (and Gavin) and they all play together.  She's such a fun little girl...she makes us all so very happy.