In my baby girl’s 10th month of life, her little personality is really showing through.

Early in the month, the Bean was baptized. (good thing… I hear hell sucks )

She loves to laugh. Her laugh isn’t the little girl laugh that you’d expect though. It kind of sounds like a squirrel hacking. (Video to come) She thinks all kinds of things are very funny, especially daddy.

The ninja crawling skills are developing and she is QUICK!

The kung foo grip has developed into grabbing things with her fingers and is starting to get this hand to mouth thing. Good thing for eating… not so good with EVERYTHING else.

Not only is she pulling herself up to a stand, but she has figured out how to get back down again (without falling on her butt). And to add to the impending paranoia, she is walking around the table while only holding on with one hand. While walking around the table, she also grabs everything and eats whatever she finds (see paranoia above).

She has had a lot of trouble with foods that involve chewing. Even the “graduate” foods they make for babies caused a little gagging. Then we tried a Golden Oreo. she really liked the middle (when put on her tongue), and she tried a little bit of the cookie part. It was a huge hit and she was chewing it (with Mommy and Daddy waiting for her to gag). But she didn’t gag. She asked for more! (clearly Oreos are the answer to all the world’s problems.) She didn’t get anymore – instead she got the baby version and it has been progressing since then. She can even feed herself! (Sort of… but still good)

A new favorite hobby is to drop things on the floor. We tell her “uh oh” when something falls and she has started to do a face and say something that sounds like “uh oh”.

She is waving. Not proficiently. Not every time. But it is SO cute!

For the Augur show she went to, she was doing a clapping motion (but had trouble actually hitting her hands together). Since then, she has figured it out and cheers for EVERYTHING.

She got her first pair of shoes – little blue shoes with monkeys on them.  She also has a purple pair (that match most of her clothes that are also purple)  (The Manolo’s are on back order)

She is still fitting into 9 month clothes, but only some of them. She does fit into most of her 12 month clothes. Thanks in no small part to Belle, her Halloween wear was plentiful.

This month she celebrated her very first ‘Frantober’. She got to see the trees change color, she got to see her first pumpkins (she wasn’t all that impressed), and she got to dress up for her very first Halloween (she was a dragon as you can tell). The Bean’s first halloween was a success. Her halloween was celebrated at a wedding, followed by a halloween party. She was the cutest by far – but everyone else looked good too.  With this trip mommy and daddy were well prepared (translation – truck was FULL of baby gear).

Lastly, she is finally getting TEETH. I was a little worried that she had none so far (even though the doc and all books agree there was no reason to worry). I thought there was only one on the way,  but today I caught site and realized that there are two.

I think that is all for this month. We are fast approaching the one year mark… I can’t believe it.

36 years ago, I was born. As you know, birthdays are a big deal to me. Not just my own, but birthdays in general. I have a firm policy (in my own mind) that people shouldn’t work on their birthdays. Since highschool, I have not worked on my birthday. It is the one day that I don’t feel bad for being selfish. It is the one day I will sleep late and not care.

This past weekend was my “celebration” weekend. All the “fam” came down and we had a grand time.  Hubby was great and was on Bean duty all night (the many times she woke up) Today, my actual birthday, started at about 3am – waking to the sound of an UNHAPPY baby. Hubby is in school today, so it is my job tonight… She finally got back down around 4, only to repeat again at 4:30. Then she slept in until 7:30. She’s had a hacking cough all weekend and has been generally not feeling well, so I was worried about her and made an appointment to go to the doctor today.

While eating dinner, one of my friends noted that I have changed a lot this year. I think she is right. I am not sure if it is good or bad – just different. I am sitting here, on my birthday, watching my sick daughter sleep and I am content. I wouldn’t turn down a week-long cruise for my birthday week, but I am content knowing that my daughter, who hardly slept all night, is finally sleeping.

Even my birthday plans changed. I really wanted to go to a corn maze and take the Bean with us (for the many photo opps that there would be). It was raining, so the one thing I wanted to do was cancelled. The selfish me would have left the child w/ dad and gone w/ her friends. But the mom in me cancelled the whole thing because it was raining and Bean was feeling bad already — therefore didn’t need to spend the day in the rain.

I knew that having a child would change my life. But, I didn’t think it would be so drastic in such a short amount of time.

My birthday wish is that my Bean gets better and sleeps all night tonight.