Countdown to Baby Harrison!: Ten Months Old!

Ten months old today!

So many amazing changes have happened in the last month! Mairi is making leaps and bounds in terms of her development and it is so exciting to watch and encourage. After lots of stress and exercises Mairi has finally started crawling up on all fours! It happened just three days before she turned ten months old. She had been getting around quite easily by army crawling but her physiotherapist insisted that, in order for her neck and shoulder to completely heal, she needed to learn to crawl the traditional way. It was hard, because having all the weight on her arms puts pressure on her tight shoulder, which is quite uncomfortable for her. But, it is kind of the last step in getting everything loosened up so that she's not scrunching and tilting. It was a long hard road (she'd been army crawling for several months) but she's finally doing it and it's so great to watch. The physiotherapist suggested we get a little tunnel for her to crawl through and she has crawled through a couple of times toward me now.

She continues to pull up to standing on everything and anything: her crib, the coffee table, her dino walker, the wall, the fridge, the couch, a knee. She just cruises along everything to get where she wants to go. She can now bend down to pick something off the floor and stand back up and can get to standing from the floor without pulling up (though this is an emerging skill). She can walk really well behind her dino walker now and does not need us to hold onto it to slow it down anymore. She can lower her self from standing to sitting position without falling too. Right now she has cruised the length of the desk I'm at and moved on to the office chair I'm sitting in.

She has started to repeat a couple of words we'll say to her - her favourite is "uh oh!" She loves to point at things again (she was doing this a few months ago, in an indiscriminate way).

She is still not sleeping well and, in fact, we've had a few terrible nights recently, where she is up five or six times. We are going to have to re-do all our sleep training and this will be tough but we really need to sleep again.

Last doctor appointment was on June 5 and Mairi is healthy in every respect. She was just over 18 lbs (weighed with no clothes on) and that puts her still at the 50th percentile where she has been pretty much her whole life. She is 75th percentile for both her height (28 inches) and her head measurement. The doctor commented on how strong she is in her standing and predicted that she would be walking soon. It's always so nice to see her doctor. Dr. Van Tomme just loves how snuggly and happy Mairi is.

We've had a few more fun outings in the last while: Mairi went to her first Mosaic and loved the music and dancing; we went to our friend Jocelyn's bridal shower; and Mairi went to the Raffey's anniversary/retirement party with her dad. We had a really nice little visit out at Tara and Anthony's cabin last weekend, where Mairi had a great time playing with their son Adrian - sharing lots of toys, but also a sippy cup, and Mairi got Adrian's cold!

We've been going for walks when the weather is nice and Jeff has been running with Mairi in the stroller. She loves it when he gets going really fast!

In terms of eating, we're doing a lot more finger food these days: pieces of sweet potato, peas, carrots, corn, chicken, fish, ground beef, and her absolute favourite, watermelon! She has started getting tastes of what we're eating and even got to try a little french toast with syrup when we had a special breakfast for Jeff's first Father's Day. Of course, she loved it.

We are headed out to the lake this weekend and next for Canada Day, which will be a bit of an extended stay as Dan and Devon will be coming out to visit! Can't wait to spend more time with those guys!

Addendum: Forgot to mention that she's been teething a bunch and now has four teeth: the two middle bottom ones and a middle and side one on the top. Her chompers look cute but a little funny. They're a big help for eating though. She's a good chewer and rarely chokes.