Who needs to crawl...

...when you can do this?

A Ten-Month Willa

The last week of May was a hectic one.  It was the last week of school, which is always hectic trying to wrap up the year, move a classroom (I've moved classrooms almost every year that I've been teaching, so for me, it goes with the territory), get mountains of late work corrected and grades finished up.  This year, however, we also had three little girls battling ear infections (Willa's led to a fever of 105!!), Willa was teething, Evaline's eye doctor's appointment, and we were getting ready for a trip to Omaha, NE where my brother was getting married (more on that later, hopefully soon).  So, with all of that, I forgot about taking Willa's 9 month photo.  And actually, if she didn't have a doctor's appointment, I would have forgotten about her turning 9 months at all.  So...here I am to update at 10 months instead.  Some of the stats will be a tad old (well, a month old), but I'm pretty sure that she hasn't grown much.

So, doctor stats first: She weighs 19 pounds and is at the 60th percentile.  She is   inches tall, and is at the 15th percentile.  Her head is still enormous, coming in at the 94th percentile once again.  She is just now at ten months starting to wear a few 12 month things, but they fit her on the big size.  Her nine month clothes for the most part still fit perfect...so while she appears to be a big, chunky baby, it's somewhat of an illusion.  She's not really big for her age, she's just a little "short-round".

She's a champ at sleeping and eating.  She goes to bed at about 6:30 in the evening and gets up around 7:00 am (although this morning she got up at 7:45!).  We always put her down awake after some snuggles and she goes right to sleep.  The same is true for her naps, she takes two naps, that last between and hour and two and half hours each.  She's taking four bottles a day, and drinks around 5 - 7 ounces.  She eats breakfast (baby cereal mixed with applesauce or pureed pears or peaches and a touch of cinnamon), lunch and dinner.  For lunch and dinner she has said "Enough!" to baby food: she's simply refused to eat it.  She purses her lips and won't open her mouth, pushes the spoon away as it approaches her mouth, and then slaps at the tray on her high chair.  She was very clearly telling us that she wanted real food like the rest of us.  So, we obliged.  And so for lunch and dinner she has (cut into tiny pieces): tuna, grilled cheese, turkey, or roast beef sandwiches, a wide variety of fruit, green beans, broccoli (her favorite), asparagus, zucchini, peppers, grilled chicken, pasta, pizza, steak, pork chops, and so on...seriously, whatever we are having for dinner, she has too.

She's not crawling yet, but she doesn't really have a reason to.  For a couple of reasons: 1) if she ever looks like she needs or wants something out of her reach, two other little people usually very quickly get it for her; 2) if those other two little people aren't around and she can't reach something that she wants, she just finds something else to play with. She isn't completely immobile, though; she scoots around on her bottom.  She's a very effective spinner, and will slowly scoot on her bottom to somewhere that she wants to be (within a two-foot or so radius). She's a very laid-back little person who is very willing to go with the flow.  If we change her routine, she just rolls with it - whether that is staying up late, or having to eat an hour later than normal, or whatever.  She always wants to be where the action is, if she is left in a room alone (lets face it - she's not crawling yet, so she'll stay put...and sometimes you just have to go to the bathroom) she immediately lets everyone hear about it.  She knows exactly what she wants and she's not hesitant to let us know.  She has different cries/yells/yelps/squawks, etc to let us know how she's feeling or what she needs.  She waves hello and good bye.  She enjoys a good game of patty-cake, and coming in for a snuggle with mom or dad.  She loves music and dancing. She is happiest playing in a room with her big sisters. Particularly Cora.  I've said it before, but these two have a very special relationship.  I think that Evaline might be at a bit of a loss as to what to do with or how to play with a little baby...but Cora dotes on her.  No one can make her laugh quite like Cora can.

Overall, at 10 months little Willa is pretty awesome.  I think we'll keep her :-)