Cara is 10 months old!

I'm a little late this month. I taught a test-prep session at Midway last week and had the 4th of July holiday, so it got me very busy. This month has been the fullest, most explosive time of growth for Cara. I just can't keep up!

Stats: We did go to the doctor for her 9 month check up (no shots this time!) in mid-June, and Cara weighed 19-15 and was 27.25 inches long. Her head was 18.25 inches. That seemed big to me, but it was only the 30th %ile for weight and 50th for height. But baby girl is in the 90th %ile for her head! She's surely over 20 lbs by now--my arms and back feel it when I have to carry her for an extended amount of time.

Milestones: Holy moly, this girl never stops! Let's go through the checklist: she can get to a sitting position from any other position; pull up on anything--couch, chair, tall toys, someone sitting on the floor, in the crib; cruise just a little bit, usually on the couch; crawling up a storm and getting into everything; claps; does "so big"; wave hi and bye bye; blow kisses halfway (she puts her hand to her mouth, but doesn't push it away). She does those last few on command, and she differentiates between telling someone hi and bye bye. She looks to show recognition of lots of things: mommy, daddy, Po, other family members, her bear and herself. She has started playing peek-a-boo with herself by covering her own eyes, instead of just giggling when we do it at her. She has a really great pincer grasp for little things and food, she has definite separation anxiety, mostly from me in the mornings if Daddy tries to kiss her goodbye when I'm supposed to be feeding her. She also says lots of babble words: bah bah for bye bye, hi, dada, mama, nananana, babababa, etc. She had her first trip to the pool with our small group friends. At first she was unsure, then she loved to splash in the water. It was all fun until I dunked her and she lost it. It took her a while to recover, but subsequent visits were also fun. What a big girl she's become!

Behavior: Curious, expressive, adamant, determined, excited, comforted by routine, giggly, social.  Cara started going to school just 2-3 days a week when I stopped working for summer. I worked a ton in June, mostly getting my new room ready and planning my summer teaching session and conferences, in addition to doctor's appointments and various other stuff. She still likes going Tuesday-Thursday and spending long weekends with me. We play at home during after she wakes up until her morning nap, then when she wakes up and eats lunch, we run errands to see friends or get out of the house until naptime, and then it's usually about time for Daddy to be home. It works out well. Cara has become so much for communicative in what she wants. She doesn't talk much, but she grunts or cries or laughs or gets super excited to communicate what she wants to be doing or not doing. She really likes to be BUSY and playing with her friends and at school. She never stops moving when she's awake!

Sleep: Still really great. Now that it's summer, she's been more flexible. When we're home together, I let her be my alarm clock and wake us up when she wants. That's anywhere from 7-8 a.m. She takes a morning nap 3 hours after she wakes up, for anywhere from 1.5-3 (!!!) hours, but usually about 2 hours. Then she has a shorter afternoon nap around 3-4 for about 1-1.5 hours. She sleeps 10-11 hours at night. When she goes down for a nap, she doesn't like to be rocked or shushed for very long. She fusses when we go into her room and turn out the lights because she knows I'm putting her down. I sway for a minute, shush and give her a kiss and then let her soothe herself in her crib. She's good at that! We finally put real bumpers on her crib instead of the mesh ones, and it's helped because now she's pulling up on the crib bars and kicking the sides as she sleeps.

Clothes: Still in some 9 month things, but they're getting tight in the stride. Mostly 12 month things, but the onesies are a litte long. This is the longest she's been in 2 sizes and the first time she hasn't hit the size change exactly on time. 30th %ile for height, remember? Her feet are 4.25 inches long, which means she can wear a size 3 shoe. We've gotta start wearing more shoes so she gets used to them!

Food: Oh, boy... This has been an issue. I've been so anxious to horde milk to make it last through the summer, so I had the bright idea to send Cara with 1 bottle of formula to school 3 days a week. I fed her one bottle at home and she did fine, so for about 2 weeks (that's 6 bottles total), she ate 6 oz of formula a day and nursed every other time. We dropped her 5 p.m. nursing one Saturday, and I gave her a bottle of milk instead at home, and she FREAKED. OUT. Shook her head back and forth, pushed it away, fussed, dribbled the milk out of her mouth. In turn, I freaked out and panicked that she'd never drink milk again (and me with all these frozen ounces that were surely going to waste). It's like she was telling me, "Mom, only formula goes in my bottle. This milk stuff comes from you. Obviously." Over the course of 2 weeks, we mixed milk and formula in ever-increasing increments until she worked back to just milk in a bottle. The plan is to drop her 12 p.m. nursing in the coming weeks and just nurse morning/night. We'll finish off the frozen milk I have horded (not much, but enough), and then do formula again when we're out of it. I hope to keep nursing morning/night until she's 1, so hopefully we can make that happen. I honestly thought we weren't going to have any more feeding issues once we hit 10 months, but leave it to a rookie mom to make a rookie mistake by introducing a new food like formula before we'd polished off the milk. Lesson learned. Cara eats milk in some form or fashion at 7:30, 11:45-12, 5 and 8. Still solid foods at 9:30, 2:30 and 6:30. She eats more at school because they have structured snack time in addition to the fruits and veggies I send, so Cara has gotten really good at picking up food, chewing with her gums and eating all kinds of things. She's eating table food with us too, which opens up a whole new world of options and makes it easier whether we're at home or eating out. We can share! She started with turkey lunchmeat, cheese cubes, avocado, diced fruit, beans, tomatoes, pasta and sauce, bigger puffs and yogurt melts and ground beef. There's not much she doesn't like!

Likes: Po! Cara loves Po, but the feeling isn't exactly mutual. She tries to pet him by hitting his feet or pulling his tail or grabbing a fistful of fur and trying to eat it--yuck! Maybe when she's more gentle, he'll be more interested in her. She LOVES bathtime and splashing in the ducky tub. She likes her play house front and all the details it has, her stuffed brown bear (knows how to find it by name), digging things out of her toy basket, crawling everywhere, standing by holding onto your fingers, climbing on people who sit by her on the floor, eating from the table, splashing in the pool in the backyard, when someone makes faces at her. So many things make her happy and seem to brighten her world. Everything seems to be fascinating and fun for her at this age.

Dislikes: being put down for her nap (after a few shushes, she cries because she's tired and she knows you're putting her down and leaving), being still for too long--like in the carseat when she's not tired or in the cart at HEB, not getting enough to eat, being bored when Mama can't figure out enough ways to entertain her, and-as we learned-being dunked underwater at the pool...

Favorite Moments: Spending time together now that I'm out of school. Although I've been working unofficially a lot and she's been going to school a few days, we have had fun being together during the day. She's my buddy and runs errands and hangs out with me. We have also spent lots of time with family and cousins lately. We had Murphee's birthday party, Chance's first Father's Day, visits from Buck & Mimi. It's been a month with intensive family quality time, and that makes my heart full. Chance and I even managed to squeeze in a movie date (to see Now You See Me--really fun!).

Most challenging: In the same vein as having fun keeping Cara at home during the summer, it's also really hard. I try to keep her entertained, stimulated and happy while we play at home and go on "adventures", but sometimes she seems to want more than I can give. And it's hard to schedule things around nap and feeding times still--I don't want her to fall asleep in the car, so we race to not cut it close. But I just learn as she does and figure it out as we go.

Looking forward to: an actual summer vacation--I'm taking July off of working/teaching/preparing, and I finally get a little rest. 1-2 days of relaxation at home--I've earned it after the whirlwind of June! We're really looking forward to the end of July and our Vegas vacation! Cara is staying at Camp Mimi, and they're pretty excited for that too. And I can't believe that Cara's birthday is next month... Plans are already in full effect. Just crazy!

Oh, how blessed we are to have this sweet girl in our lives!!