10-Month Pictures

Lorelei was 10-months old last Friday -- I can't believe it!

• She is still not quite crawling -- but she's so close!  She certainly can scoot around the floor on her bottom though; I think it's quite impressive!
• She loves standing, and has even started walking if we're holding her hands.  I guess I'm surprised by this since she still isn't crawling.
• She loves drinking out of straws.
• We've had a breakthrough in the sleep department.  For the longest time she would sleep all night on her back, and wouldn't even attempt rolling over.  She never liked being swaddled, but she still liked to feel secure in her crib (what baby doesn't?), so I would lay her short-ways in the crib, right up next to the bumper.  Then I would wedge her in with the Boppy pillow.  Eventually she got too long to lay short-ways in the crib, so I laid her down long-ways, but still right up next to the bumper and wedged in with the Boppy.  Well, not too long ago, that got old, and you could tell she was yearning to move around in her crib, rather than staying in the same position all night long.  So I removed the Boppy, and she started rolling over on her side to sleep.  That worked wonders...for a couple of days.  FINALLY, Chet discovered that she treats her burp rag like a pacifier.  I always knew she loved those stained white burp rags, but not that much.  Give the girl a burp rag and she's as happy as a clam.  It's seriously like her pacifier (or her lovey/security blanket).  Even the ladies at the CDC know to keep a burp rag close, because it calms her down.  Wahoo!
• She is super smart.  I'm allowed to say that because she's my daughter and this is my blog, but really...  She's not smart in a sense that she's already reading Russian literature, but she knows things, trust me.
• We love her.

This month's photo shoot was completely ridiculous.  Just so you know, my deadline to take these photos each month is one week after her official "month day" (which is the 24th of each month).  I barely made this month's deadline because I was waiting for a mosquito bite on her forehead to disappear.  That backfired though, because she just got another mosquito bite on her forehead the night before the deadline.  Anyway, she would not sit still for these photos.  I have no idea why I'm surprised.  She is 10-months old.  I'll let the pictures tell the silly story...

(Also, I still don't know enough about my camera to take pictures that are not blurry while simultaneously capturing the good light.  So most of them are blurry...blah!)

9-month picture for comparison.

10-months.

See the mosquito bite?  And how she's not really smiling?  And the burp rag?  And this is one of the better pictures!

Early on we got in a burp rag tug-of-war.

Then she tried to crawl away, even though she can't really crawl yet...

...and did a face plant.

See the mosquito bite?

Then she rolled over onto her back, and laid exactly like this for a good 45 seconds.

 

I sat her back up and started waving the burp rag above the camera, trying to get her to look at me and smile.  All that got me was her lunging for the burp rag.

I quickly returned the burp rag to her and she gave me this look:

Then she laid back down.

This is how she uses the burp rag as a pacifier...by practically smothering herself.

I sat her back up for one more attempt.

She removed the bow.

She contemplated life for a few moments.

 

Then I found a toy horse that neighs, and held her attention with that for about a quarter of a second.

Then she reached for the horse and almost face planted again.

But I (gently) pushed her back into a sitting position and got this shot, which, in my opinion, is a perfect depiction of the entire photo shoot (no bow, hair sticking up, wrinkled "10 Months" sticker, and that dern mosquito bite...but somehow it's still perfectly adorable).

(See that tooth?)