Our First Weeks in France

These last two weeks in France have been great.  We had a bit of a rockey start with the apartment having an ant problem and not being able to go to the store for necessities until Tuesday evening (we arrived on Sunday afternoon, but everything in France is closed on Sundays and Monday was a holiday).  But now the bugs are gone and we have food in the cupboards and books and toys for Addelyn, so everyone is happy :-)

Addelyn has a couple of new French books - this is one of her favorites - a matching numbers book.

Jake and I got e-book readers before we left - Addelyn likes to play with mine.  Here, she's telling me that the lady in the picture is smiling.

Addelyn likes to play with belts...oh, the things they decide are fun...

Addelyn has been working hard on potty-training.  We started just after her first birthday.  I bought her a potty-seat just so she could get used to the idea, and she's picked it up very quickly.  I didn't want her to forget while we were in France, so we got another potty seat here and she's been going usually twice per day.  She's even told me she's needed to go twice.  The second time was so cute...she signed "peepee", then she signed "come here" and lead me to the bathroom where her potty chair is.

 On our first weekend in France, we went to the African Safari zoo here in Toulouse.  We all had a great time.  The zoo is set up so that you drive through a sanctuary area where the animals (non-preditors, of course) are just walking around freely.  I saw a rhinoceros for the first time...they're HUGE!  Then you park and go through the walking portion where all of the animals are in cages as normal.

Addelyn in her new FOWARD FACING car seat on the way to the zoo

The first animal of the walking portion:  the emus were very curious

Addelyn got to pet a very friendly mini-horse

I feel like I should make some reference to the Black Swan movie here, but I'm not feeling clever enough.

Addelyn and I in front of the macaws.  She didn't care for them as much as the waterfall beneath them.

 We even saw a sea lion show.  Addelyn sat very patiently as we waited for it to start, and then her favorite part was right at the beginning:  all three sea lions belly-flopped into the water making a big SPLASH.  She thought it was hilarious!  We didn't have the camera out at the very beginning, but here's her a couple of minutes later still laughing and talking about the splash:

We've made some friends already which helps pass the days and really helped when we first got here and didn't know where anything was.  There's a nice family from Dublin, Ireland just down the sidewalk from us who have 3 and 5-year-old girls.  The girls adore Addelyn, and Addelyn likes to watch the "big kids" play.  Also, a French family moved in next door a couple of days ago.  They have three kids:  a set of 5-year-old twins (one boy, one girl), and a little boy a couple of months younger than Addelyn.  So we've gotten the 6 of the kids together to play a couple of times.  Even with the language barrier, they have a great time.  Just last night I took Addelyn outside to play and the twins and the Irish girls were outside playing already, so Addelyn and I were of course joined by all of them plus another French boy from the other side of our apartment (it seems like I always attract the neighbor kids whenever I go outside...even back home Addelyn and I can't play outside without attracting at least 3 kids from 3 different families - do parents play with their kids anymore?  because these kids all seem so starved for attention).  I swear the man that walked by and saw me with 5 kids under 5 and a 9-year-old with no other parents in sight thought they were all mine and thought I was insane.

Here's a couple more pictures I've liked of Addelyn the last couple of weeks.  She's looking more and more like a toddler and less and less like a baby every day.

we spend a LOT of time reading these days

One last funny story:  before the French family with the three kids moved in next door, there was another French family with a probably 12-year-old girl and a baby boy living there.  I didn't talk much with them until the day they left, when the little girl decided to steal Addelyn's ball from our yard.  I was doing laundry, so I had to walk back and forth between our apartment and the laundry facility all morning.  At my first pass of the neighbors' apartment, I heard the girl bouncing a ball, looked over, and saw that it was exactly like the one Addelyn has.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt and just thought it was a coincidence.  When she saw that I saw her, she quickly picked up the ball and turned around to hide it from my view.  Okay.  Probably not a coincidence.  So I put the laundry in and walked back.  As I passed by her a second time, the same thing happened:  she's bouncing the ball, sees me, then quickly picks it up and hides it from me.  I got back to our apartment and confirmed that the ball was, indeed, missing from our yard.  The next time I went to do the laundry 45 minutes later it was the same story, except instead of just turning around and hiding it, she picked it up and ran into her house :-)  Well, I would ordinarly have let it go.  Addelyn wasn't using it and I'm sure it would've made its way back to our yard when she was done playing with it...but given that she was being so secretive about it and that I saw that the family was preparing to move out (suitcases etc...on their front yard) I decided to go confront her.  When I walked up to her the next time, I walked strait for her.  For a second, she turned to run, but you could just see the decision in her face when she realized that I was walking strait toward her - she quickly went from "oh no, run away and hide the ball" to "ohhhhh, is this YOUR ball?".  Only she didn't speak English.  I'm so glad I've been learning French.  I was able to understand her and answer in French (I decided to play along with her innocent scheme).  We ended up playing with the ball together and talking for a while, and then she brought out a delicious pastry for Addelyn, so all ended well.  

Stats:

Age: 13.5 months

Weight: 23 ish lbs

Length:  31ish inches

Drinks: about 2-3 8-ounce sippys of milk per day (all of which is regular whole-milk) with meals and a couple of drinks of milk before bed every night

Eats: yogurt, and some cereal for breakfast; leftovers for lunch (spagetti, sandwiches etc...); and a fruit pouch, and whatever we're having for dinner. 

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 10pm-10am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day 

Awake for:4-7 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 24 month

Motor skills: spinning in circles, trying to jump (she rarely gets both feet off the ground at the same time), going up stairs well, going down stairs very slowly and with supervision, running, climbling the ladder to her slide, getting down from high places by herself

other skills:Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo, starting to pretend-play
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), hi, bye-bye, and NO-NO (is her newest), and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.  She's getting much  more clear with her talking now.  I think it won't be long before she explodes in her speech.

signs:  around 50-60 that she does herself.  And she makes up signs for words she doesn't know.

An adventure at the doctor and a conversation with Addelyn

Addelyn had her 12-month checkup (yay!  my big 1-year old! A blog on the birthday will come soon).  Everything went excellently until it came time for Addelyn to get her shots.  She got three this time and, as always, she was NOT happy with them!  As Addelyn always does when she's very upset (like many babies) the initial cry was all in one big exhale.  Usually that exhale would be followed by a big breath and then some very loud screaming.  This time the breath in didn't happen...and didn't happen...and didn't happen.  The nurse and I kind-of laughed it off for the first 5-10 seconds, but then she kept NOT breathing.  I started to get really scared, and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she started to fall over in my arms and then I really started to panic.  My mommy instincts kicked in and I was rubbing her hard on the back and yelling her name and jostling her around a bit to get her to breathe.  Thankfully, the nurse remembered her training and after I sat a partially-limp Addelyn down on the table to get in front of her, the nurse blew in her face.  Looking back, I knew that blowing in a child's face will cause them to take an instinctual breath in, but I didn't think to apply that knowledge to that situation.  As soon as the nurse blew in Addelyn's face she took a deep breath in, came-to, and started crying normally.  This all took place in the span of about 15 seconds, but it felt like forever!  Addelyn did just fine after that and is no worse for wear, and now I know what to do should that ever happen again!

On a lighter note, here's a fun conversation I just had with Addelyn over dinner:
Me:  "Yay!  look, you just ate your vegetables all gone!  What a good girl!"
Addelyn:  smiles and signs all gone
Me:  "Do you want some more?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some more squash?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some water?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some puffs?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no  (now I'm starting to think she's just saying no because she likes to tell me no...)
Me:  "Do you want some peaches?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want up?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Are you all done?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want a cookie"
Addelyn:  smiles, nods her head yes and signs cookie.

Oh my...such a sweet tooth already.  (Though...they are cookies specially for babies, sweetened by fruit, so I don't feel too bad giving her one per day)

Stats - I'll do stats for the first birthday post :-)

Addelyn did a couple of new things today that I thought were pretty AMAZING considering her age:

1.  It seems that Addelyn has learned a little bit of self-control.  We were playing with bubbles and she took the wand from me.  After playing with it a while (blowing in it, waving it around, looking at herself holding it in the mirror) she started to put it in her mouth.  After telling her to get it out of her mouth several times I took it away, at which point she of course began to cry.  After giving her cuddles and letting her know that I still loved her even though I had to take away her toy, I told her I'd give it back to her but she couldn't put it in her mouth, otherwise I'd take it away for good.  Once she got it back she played with it some more (though still in a bad mood from when I took it away) - and here's the surprising part:  at least a dozen times she went to put the wand in her mouth but caught herself before she did it and stopped and shook her head no-no (and yelled at me because she wanted to put it in her mouth) but she DIDN'T put it back in her mouth again and I didn't even need to remind her.

2.  Addelyn has made up a sign for "pretty" and "hairbrush"  It came about because I always tell her how pretty she is when I'm brushing her hair, so to say either word she just "brushes" her hair with her hand.  When I realized what she had done I was quite impressed to say the least!

3.  Addelyn has started shaking or nodding her head to say "no" or "yes" in answer to my questions - it is so nice!  Before she started doing that she still had pretty obvious no and yes responses (just using body language), but she just seems so much more grown up now that she has started shaking her head.  I've also noticed that she definitely likes answering no much more than answering yes.  I think that she just likes that she has some control over the situation, and she's exploring the concept that not everything mommy suggests has to happen :-)  Asserting her independence and she's not even 1 yet...boy, am I in for it!

4.  Another first - I've heard it a couple of times today and it's so cute!!!  Addelyn says "uh-oh" and "oh no!" now when she drops something etc...she also has been turning her palms up in question for a week or two now...I'll try to get a picture and edit it in soon :-)

Finally, here's a video of Addelyn being her cheerful/playful self.  She usually gets into a very playful, very active mood about 1 hour or 30 minutes before bedtime, and I thought I'd get it on video just so everyone can see how adorable it is :-)

Stats:
No stats today - not much has changed since last time :-)  Finally, 2 posts in one month!

Fluent Gibberish and NO-NO!

b nm n , gh bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb  <--- that is Addelyn's contribution to the blog and also a lot like how she sounds these days :-)  Addelyn has become confident enough in her voice that she just babbles to herself now...it's so cute!  I think she sounds like an alien when she does it :-)

Addelyn's newest word is NO-NO!!  And the temper has developed along with it.  She now outright yells at me when she is upset about something - if she's not getting her way, it's NO-NO! NO-NO! NO-NO! broken up by a couple of high-pitched wines and angry-sounding yelling.  It's kind-of hard not to laugh at her at first, but after a while it gets pretty old!

The past week or so Addelyn has just been absorbing SO much!  For the first time, she really mimicks me very well, so she's speaking (a little) more clearly and, most importantly, she's learning TONS of signs!  According to my most likely incomplete list, Addelyn now regularly uses 29 signs and is inconsistently doing 6 more.  Here's a video of her showing of a few of them, as well as her knowledge of her body parts (it's a bit long...sorry):

At Addelyn's 9-month checkup the doctor said that she should be weaned from the bottle by her first birthday, so we're starting that.  We've begun replacing one bottle each day with a sippy cup of milk instead. She doesn't seem to mind too much, except that the milk doesn't flow as fast from the sippy cup as it does from her bottle, so she's drinking a little less for that feeding.  Hmmm...maybe we need to try a different type of sippy cup?  (the problem is finding a happy medium, because if it comes too fast then she just spits the excess out all over herself). 

In good news, Addelyn's clogged tear ducts finally seem to have cleared up!!! Yay!!!  She's had goobery eyes since she was born, and at her 9-month checkup the doctor said that if they didn't clear up by her 12-month checkup, then she'd have to have surgery, so we dodged that bullet - I'm so relieved!

Jake and I went on vacation to Italy this month - while we were gone Addelyn stayed at her Aunt Tara's house and got to play with cousins Kylie and Madi.  Based on the reports from my mom (who watched the girls during the day) and Tara, Addelyn had a LOT of fun!  She enjoyed watching the older girls play, but didn't like it so much that they got to eat different food than her, and Addelyn downright got upset when anybody got told no-no...(she's a sensitive one!).  We got back from Italy late at night, so Addelyn didn't see us until she woke up the following morning.  When she started crying, Tara and I both went in to get her.  She was expecting Tara, so she didn't even look at me and when I picked her up she got a little upset and wanted to go to Tara.  Well, I had missed her terribly, so I wasn't about to have that...we went and stood in front of the mirror, and as soon as she saw that it was mommy that had her she was all smiles!  She was pretty clingy that next few days, and even now she's much more cuddly than she's ever been, but I'm not complaining!  

The girls all matched!  Addelyn was mad that I made her stay that far away from
me for long enough to take the picture...she was feeling a bit clingy :-)

The weather is getting nice and with that we've been going outside a lot!  If we haven't gone outside to play at least once by late afternoon, Addelyn starts to get pretty upset and insistent...she's even learned the sign for "outside" and uses it to tell me when she wants to go out and play :-)  

Addelyn LOVES to swing - every time we go outside she makes a B-line to the swing!

Got her cool shades and her new helmet on and all ready to go for her first ever bike ride!

Attached to daddy's bike in her new ride

Stats:

Age: 11.5 months

Weight: 23 lbs

Length:  29ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before her nap, one in the middle of the afternoon, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, a veggie, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day 

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 12 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo, Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), hi, bye-bye, and NO-NO (is her newest), and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: 29-35 that she does herself.

I know that bragging about yourself is frowned upon, but bragging about your kids is okay, right?  Because Addelyn is sooo smart and beautiful and talented and strong, she just amazes me every day...

Between walking so well and signing (and speaking) a LOT, Addelyn seems like she's grown up so quickly!  Every day she seems more like a little kid and less like a baby.  Here's a list of all of the things that Addelyn can sign (The ones with the stars by them are ones she's not very consistent with yet):

Animals:
Puppy, Owl, Bunny, Monkey, Bear, Elephant*, Kitty
Food:
Banana, Cheese, Milk, Eat, Apple*
Other:
Aunt Becki, Flower*, Bye-bye/Hi, Fan, Light, Ball, Yay, Up, Car*, Bath, All Done, Night-Night*, Baby, Binkie, Airplane (sort-of...):

She can also find her toes, fingers, eyes*, ears, mouth, nose*, head, belly*, and hair (as well as all of those things on me); and she can point to a picture of a kitty, puppy, lion, tiger, bear, girraffe, zebra, rabbit, owl, and pig if asked, as well as all of the things that she can sign and more!

Addelyn understands so much of what I say...I try to challenge her with new commands every day (like telling her to put a ball on her head or to wash her belly during bath time...or even incorporating new words and concepts into known commands or vice versa like "show baby the shoe" (where show is a new verb for her))  and, to my astonishment, Addelyn almost always succeeds in doing the right thing!

Addelyn has started to do a few new cute things this month - She gives me a big cheesy grin if I ask her to, blows bubbles with her mouth, and she loves to hide behind the door frame just outside of a room and then jump out and scare me :-)

Ok...that's probably enough of me going on about how smart she is...now you can see for yourself how cute she is :-)

I loved this outfit so much we just had to do a photo shoot with it...and she did so well!  she just sat there and smiled :-)

just sitting and reading a book - she is her father's daughter!

Addelyn loves to flip the pages of chapter books.

To be honest, I totally just sat there and let her do that...she was having so much fun!

My big helper!

Beautiful girl!

Action shot!  Running across the room...

Addelyn loves to play the piano

Big Smiles!

Too cool in her new shades

She's such a rockstar!

Another big cheesy smile!  That's her new thing...

mmm...ice cream!

Another recent development - Addelyn realized that she can blow bubbles with her mouth!

It's finally getting warm enough out to swing!

way up high!

Kicking mommy is her favorite thing to do in the swing...

Stats:

Age: 10.5 months

Weight: 22 lbs

Length:  29ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before each of 2 naps, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, a veggie, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - one nap is 3 hours after she wakes up for the day and one is usually somewhere between 4 and 7:00 - but we're trying to phase that second one out.

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 12 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo (very well with a blanket, and she just started with her hands on February 4), Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), I've also heard hi a time or two, and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: see above

Smarty Pants

Addelyn is smarter and smarter every day; I'm continually amazed by her in the things she understands and how well she communicates.  When we're playing I can just see the wheels turning in her head as she makes connections and learns new concepts.  She is such a patient and avid learner - she shows me a toy and I tell her what it's called and she looks at the toy, then looks back at me and I say it again and we just do that over and over again and there is no doubt in my mind that she knows that I'm teaching her what the object is called.  Here is just a small list of some of the things she knows and can do:

Addelyn understands the following words/concepts:

Addelyn - She answers to her name (and has for probably a little over a month now)

Mama - of course :-)  she can also say it!

Dada - she understands and says Dada, too!

Up up - she says this one a lot and even signs it occasionally!  She LOVES to be held (by me)

Ball - I think she really understands the concept of ball and she even says and signs it regularly
Banana - Today (February 6) Addelyn started signing banana when she wants to eat a banana (her favorite food)

Bath - Addelyn LOVES to take baths, so she picked up on that one very quickly - whenever we're in the bathroom she says "ba! ba! ba! ba! ..."  over and over and over!

All done - Addelyn definitely understands it when I say "all done", she says "ah duh" and she tries to sign it, but right now she just usually ends up clapping...I think the sign confuses her a little, but we're working on it!

hi and bye-bye - she waves hello and bye-bye, and she even said hi once.

fan - as in ceiling fan.  If she sees a ceiling fan she will sign fan to me (over and over...she gets pretty excited about fans)

"yay" - she claps for yay or even when I say "clap your hands", and I've even heard her try to say it a time or two

"woah" - this one is funny - I must say it a lot, because something surprising happened a couple of days ago and I heard Addelyn say "woah" very clearly :-)

Dance - if I say "Addelyn, dance, dance, dance!"  she rocks back and forth (her way of dancing)

Rockey - if Addelyn is holding her dolly, I say "Addelyn, rockey rockey dolly" - and she rocks back and forth 

Dolly - if I ask Addelyn where her dolly is she goes and finds it and brings it to me

"Sit Please" - If I ask Addelyn to "Sit Please" she sits down (if she feels like it)

No-no-no - If Addelyn is doing something she shouldn't, I say "Addelyn, no-no-no" and she stops (again...if she feels like it...there's understanding and then there's actually acting on that knowledge)

Come Here - Addelyn understands Come Here and usually comes when I say it very well - she's always looking for an excuse to be close to me :-)

"I'm gonna get you!" - she usually gets excited and either runs away screaming or runs right at me giggling

nose, eyes, ears, mouth - If I say "Addelyn, where's Mommy's ____" she points to it.  She's not right 100% of the time, but she's usually pretty good with the nose.  And she knows her ears and head very well.

toes - Addelyn knows what toes are and she can find hers and mine and daddy's when asked

puppy - She definitely knows the sign that goes with the word "puppy", but I'm not sure if she completely grasps the meaning of the word puppy just yet - I think she has a wider definition of the word puppy than I do!

milk - she understands and occasionally signs milk.  Yesterday (February 6) for the first time she actually signed milk to request it.  In the past the only time she had ever signed milk to me was when I signed it to her first, but yesterday she was yelling and I asked her what she wanted...she just stopped yelling, made eye contact, said "muh" and signed milk and that actually was what she wanted!  Baby signing is a wonderful thing!]
light - Addelyn's newest thing is lights.  Whenever we walk into a room she finds the light on the ceiling and points it out to me and says "aye"
"neigh" - if she sees a picture of a horse and I say horse, Addelyn smiles and says "ehhhh" (neigh)
bunny - if I say bunny, she will sign it
kiss - she makes kissey noises in the air or will "kiss" (read - slobber) my cheek, but won't make the kiss noise on my cheek...go figure...

The list goes on and on - she just knows so much now!

In other news, Addelyn has learned how to get to a standing position without using anything for support, which means she doesn't crawl ANYWHERE anymore.  She is walking so much better now that she has that constant practice, and she's falling less and less each day.  She's even getting better at walking on slick surfaces, though they still make both of us a little nervous.

One ADORABLE thing that Addelyn has started doing - we play a CD of kid music at least once per day and sing and dance along (something Addelyn always enjoys very much).  On the CD we've been listening to recently is the song "Little Bunny Foofoo", and it's our favorite song.  I sit her in front of me (or sometimes she dances around) and I do the hand motions to it.  We've sung that song so much that recently Addelyn has started to do the hand motions with me!  (well, at least some of them).  She gets so excited when the song comes on she can't contain herself.  Yesterday when it came on she went from playing with some books and occasionally rocking along to the music (the song is about half way through the CD, so by the time we get to it we've been dancing for quite a while) to on her feet dancing as hard as she could, screaming and yelling with delight, and stomping her feet up and down so fast I swear she actually jumped a couple of times (no small feat for a 9-month-old).  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have the cutest baby in the world.

I'm feeding Addelyn 3 meals a day now (I started when she turned 9 months old) and I've started her on oatmeal and also milk products like yogurt and cheese.  Since she's started eating more and higher-calorie solid food during the day she has been sleeping SO much better at night!  For two nights in a row now she's slept ALL night! (Like, from when I put her to bed at 9:30 or 10 to when she wakes up at 9am!) That's amazing for her!  I'm so excited and I really hope she makes a habit of this!  With something good comes something not so good, though...her napping during the day is starting to decrease.  I can usually get about 2-3 hours of napping per day out of her, but she has rejected all of my attempts to get her on a schedule, so those naps could be 20 minutes in the morning and 2 hours in the early evening or 3 hours after lunch and no evening nap at all.  It's just impossible to plan anything around her sleeping!

Finally, some cute pictures to make you smile (as if the dancing video wasn't enough...isn't she too cute?? :-)

I just love this smile!

Addelyn at 9 months old

Addelyn loves to read her books

"I get you, mommy!" 

This is what happens when you have an engineer for a father - Jake
was trying to figure out how the dolly works

bubbles!

We hosted a baby shower last weekend and Addelyn got to keep the balloons!

Addelyn loves to crinkle paper...

box - 60 strait minutes of solid entertainment

Addelyn at 10 months old with the bunnies the day we gave them away :-(

Stats:

Age: 10 months

Weight: 21 or 22 lbs

Length:  28ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before each of 2 naps, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: oatmeal, yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, bread, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a veggie, a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am  (she's finally started sleeping through the night!)_

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - one nap is 3 hours after she wakes up for the day and one is usually somewhere between 4 and 7:00

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 12 month, some 18 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo (very well with a blanket, and she just started with her hands on February 4), Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), I've also heard hi a time or two, and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: Addelyn does bye bye (waving), yay (clapping), puppy (slapping her leg), milk, change diaper, fan, banana  and she understands  "up", "all done", "eat", and we're working on "help", "out", "fall down", "play", "tired", "night night", "book", "binkie"