10 months old

I had to kind of scare her to catch her attn and leave the duck alone!
That is why she looks a little caught off guard!

Once again, I apologize for taking so long to get up another post! It has been really busy around here. I could go into the details of it all, but I will spare you and just promise that I will try to do better. However, since I have been a little slack over the last month or so, people have not been shy about telling me to get up a new post, so I now know I have alot of readers! Yay!

Cecilia is now 10 months old (she actually has been for a couple weeks!) She continues to be the joy of our lives. She had a doctor's appt this month to follow up on her weight and physical development from her 9 month appt. She weighed in at 18 lbs; she gained .5 a pound which is on the low side of normal, and it keeps her in the 25%. The doc was also content with the plan we got from First Steps as far as exercises and being evaluated again in June.

On that note, Cecilia is still not crawling, but we are definitely seeing progress, which makes me very happy. I guess those pros know what they are doing! She isn't a huge fan of some of the exercises, so we have adapted some of them a bit. Mazie is now included; it is a combination of playing fetch with Mazie and then helping Cecilia "chase" Mazie and her toys around the living room. Both Mazie and Cecilia seem to really enjoy it. It is good family fun!

Cecilia continues to sign "more" and will sign "finished" occasionally. She uses "more" mostly for food, but will also use it for other things. It seems as though a light bulb went off in her head when she started signing "more." She realized that she could control situations and let us know what she wants and does not want. Let's just say we have had our first temper tantrum, and it is not pretty. In her defense, she did have a double ear infection last week, and she has been much better this week.

She has decided that she is kind of over baby food. I still try to give it to her at every meal. Sometimes she won't eat it at all, sometimes she eats a little, and sometimes she eats it all. She is very into feeding herself, which can make meal time last a very long time. It also poses another challenge for me to come up with healthy finger food to give her as a full meal. Baby food was easy because you could make it all at once and freeze it in individual servings. I am working on a system though, and it is getting better. She has also shown an interest in feeding herself with a utensil, so we have been working on that a bit as well.

Cecilia's "talking" is developing quite well. She does it ALL the time, and it sounds like jibberish instead of just baby noises with a few syllables. She will sometimes repeat what we say; of course she isn't really saying what we said, but the sound of it sounds just the same.

Her love of books is also continuing to grow. She loves to sit and listen as we read to her and turns the pages for us. She loves them so much that they were the cause of one of her first temper tantrums. I had finished reading one, and she suddenly got all upset crying/yelling, arching her back, etc... I started reading it again, and she instantly stopped and started paying attention to the book again. We are trying to work with her to sign "more" at those times, but it is difficult to do when she is so upset. She will also sit by herself and flip through a book (as well as she can).

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks:

Hanging out in the yard while Daddy works on the landscaping

Jenna and Mason came to town. So we took them to the park.

And showed Mason how to swing!

We went to Dayton last weekend and met Beth and
Chase at Panera for bkfst along the way.

Chase gave Cecilia her first graham cracker, and she LOVED them!
Beth appropriately called her "Buzz Saw" b/c Cecilia zipped
right through them, not even slowing down to swallow!

In Dayton Cecilia received LOTS of attention from her cousins.
We went to John's soccer game, and the kids took Cecilia to
play in the empty field next to us.

Playing ball with Alexandra.

Cecilia is also currently facinated with people's faces.

We also went swimming for the first time in Dayton.
The pool was VERY crowded,so it was loud with
LOTS of splashing. Cecilia did better than I thought,
considering the situation. She smiled some, and I think in a calmer,
warmer environment (the water was kind of cold), she will love it.
A picture of the craziness, and it does not do it justice
as this was after it had emptied out quite a bit.
All cleaned up and ready to sleep on the drive back home.
An out take, notice another different diaper. Yes, it is cloth.
We have been trying them out, and it is going okay. I think I
will end up using a combo of disposables and cloth.