10 months of "lizzup!"

well, last week lizzie turned ten months old. can.not.believe.it. if i am honest with myself, her first year thus far has seemed like a total blur. maybe it's because i already have a 3-year-old. or because i work full-time. or because my husband is having a love-affair with a woman named the topography of utopia ... (his dissertation :). or maybe because we moved. i'm not really sure. pick any of the above. with that said, i still can.not.believe she is going to be one in less than 2 months! ACK!

needless to say, here are a few milestones & highlights of lil lizzup's 10th month of life!

MOVING: standing on her own for longer and longer periods! cruising, too. crawling so, so fast!

TALKING: babbling like nobody's business - says "mama." also says "dada" and "bubba" but has not necessarily connected the words with eric & ez yet but we think she's pretty close b/c sometimes it seems like she is. :) also can make a monkey sound. it's pretty dog-gone funny. :) or should i say monkey-gone? errr. doesn't really work, does it?

EATING: a real German in this department! loves her meats and cheeses! we've just recently discovered that she is a total meat lover - little cubes of ham & chicken are her favorites. ground beef is just so-so. :P it's seriously a good thing we aren't vegetarians. :P her all-time fav, however, is by far cheese!! ironically, just like her older brother's was ... and not just bland, ol' cheese, but EXTRA sharp! :) (which i guess isn't so German?) she does almost all veggies - peas, sweet potato, acorn squash (loves! esp. ms. beth's!), brocc, cauliflower, you name it. the only one she's not a huge fan of is green beans. for fruits bananas/prunes/apple (in apple sauce) seems to be her favs. doesn't like peaches or apricots yet. i think they are too sour for her because she always puckers. :) for carbs we do pastas, wheat bread & tortilla to munch on, Cheerios, and puffs every now and then. :)

SCHEDULING (boring stuff for mommio's reference for later): dropped her catnap this month. started taking two long (2 to sometimes even 3 hours long! ez never quite caught on to this as an infant) naps, one around 10am & the other around 2pm. bedtime/wakes around 8pm/8am. milk feeds every four hours during the day. solids 3 times/day about 30 mins after milk feed.

OTHER 10-MO LOVES:

• her brother - he is pretty much the light of her life. :)
• playing peek-a-boo
• playing patti-cake
• taking good, long hard 2-3 hour naps!
• one of ezra's old blue puppy dogs from when he is baby that she crawls around the house with 24-7 half the time with it hanging out of her mouth
• crawling out the front door (YIKES!)
• furry animals
• being tickled with daddy's whiskers
• the grass
• hatt street crossing on bubba's tracks (that exciting red button that makes such loud noises!)
• swinging
• dancing with mommy
• reading books - sits so, so still and listens!
• my CLs, esp Kelcy & Nolan :P
• BATH TIME - flails like a crazy woman, nearly drowning herself from all the water she ingests from splashing all fours! by the end everyone in the family is soaked! (it truly is a hilarious sight to be seen!)

SOME 10-MO HATES:

• her face being cleaned off with a wet rag
• me brushing her hair
• taking things away from her that she knows she's not supposed to have
• getting dressed/undressed - especially putting anything over her head
• a dirty diaper. she's a REAL princess in this department. the smallest smudge calls for immediate changing! (sooo different than ez!)
• the church nursery. can we say DRAMA?! (again, totally different than ez who never once experienced this til eleanor moved away and he was 3 1/2!)
• men with goatees who smile at her. :) ok, really more like stranger anxiety. esp. during her 9th month. starting to fade now. unless we're @ the church nursery of course. :)

10 MO PHOTOS:

because doesn't everyone transport their Christmas tree from one house to another via wagon?! and yes, that means ez and mommy got to decorate twice. and yes, the novelty wore off quite a bit the second time, so really, mommy got to decorate it twice. :) i just found the fact that our family was moving ... with a baby ... and a three-year-old ... at Christmas ... with a complete draft of a dissertation due less than a month later ... well, less than hilarious. yet, it is something i want to document for our little love because despite the tornado of activity, her resilience and easy-going nature was a true gift!

helping mommy unpack after the big move!

as mobile as can be - regularly standing with only one hand for support! can stand up to 30 secs without any hands now!

her first Christmas AND with the whole clan here!!

her first real bubble bath. she was totally fascinated. kept trying to pick the bubbles up between her finger and thumb and eat them. finally just bent down and ate a whole mouthful, resulting in the bubble beard. :)

over MLK weekend, my staff went on retreat at the "oasis" lake house - donated ever so generously by mal's parents. simba lizzie was a definite highlight - for the men included! for some reason, i have a feeling that this will not be the only retreat that lizzie goes on with a group of college students in her young lifetime! :) and if you are wondering where eric was when this was shot, he was home with his girlfriend utopia. :)

sleeping with bubba on retreat. these two def slept a lot more than mommy did! maybe it's because big kids like to stay up til 3am, but little kids like to get up at 6am? :)

we love this lil dolly! (and yes, she has 6 teeth!)