Ten Months Old

This month has been the month of clapping - Pearl loves to clap! She claps when she's excited or when she's finished with something, and when she half-wakes in the middle of the night to nurse. She even knows the word for it and will gamely clap when I say "Clapping!" I find it very cute and it hasn't gotten old yet. She has also resumed signing and asks for milkies a lot, though I still haven't seen the potty sign from her, and waving is an off and on thing.



She's learned another sort of sign this month - pointing. It has been very fascinating and completely thrilling to see what she wants me to see, to talk to her about the things that catch her interest and to have further insight as to what is going on in her mind. She loves to crawl under our dining table - which we refer to as her fort because she spends so much time down there - and point at the workings of the butterfly leaf, and she points any time she sees her shadow. We were in an alcove at the library the other day and she was pointing up and I looked to see where a mural had extended onto the ceiling of the alcove, something I wouldn't have noticed unless she showed me.


She has begun imitating my voice and is pretty accurate in echoing my pitch and tone after I say something or make a noise. In fact she gets so close to saying "Yay!" when she's clapping, like I do, that I think it counts as her second word! She also says "Ooooh" a lot, in a very drawn out and serious manner, often when she's pointing at something.

Pearl got her third tooth earlier this month - her upper front left tooth. I predicted April 7th as the date her next tooth will arrive as they seem to be coming in a month apart. So she has a cute little snaggletooth grin now. Also, I forgot to mention last month but she got her first freckle! On her left cheek, off to the side of her mouth. It's visible in the larger versions of several of the pictures I have posted, including the one below. Her hair is getting longer and it's hard to say what color it is. Sometimes it looks to be a very dark brown; other times golden. She's also been mistaken for a redhead. Her eyes are still the same beautiful blue though.



She is getting more adventurous in her cruising now, grabbing onto a new object with one hand and stepping over to it while releasing whatever she was holding onto originally. I don't think she'll be walking any time real soon. She doesn't seem very impressed when I hold her hands and help her to walk; she knows she can crawl much faster.

Pearl still isn't eating a whole bunch of solids, just milkies mostly. We are letting her drink (with our help of course) water from a regular cup rather than a sippy as she gets more that way, and she loves to grab it and bring it to her mouth and stick her tongue in the cup and her fingers in the water, having fun exploring the experience in general.

This last weekend I had some family in from out of town and we did something with them each day. Though Pearl was pretty reserved she surprised me by keeping her cool and not freaking out too much, even at a very loud and busy restaurant when it was past her bedtime. She's not as friendly and outgoing as she was at about seven months but she allows people to hold her, which is more than she has at some points.



She loves to be silly and get tickled and play after she nurses, and often she gets crazy and wants to play like that right before bedtime too, which is really funny because she is wound up and tired and being downright hilarious. She loves to be turned upside down and jiggled and will fling her head back, giggling and wanting to do it again. Peekaboo is still a big favorite, and she loves to knock over anything we stack up, and take the diapers out of the diaper basket and the books out of the book box and the toys out of the toy box...



It has been another joyful month that has flown by in the wink of an eye.


Though time has passed a bit slower during the times she decided she needed to crawl around the table over and over at warp 9 at 3am...