Abby is 10 Months Old!

She was last week, anyway. Now that I'm past my week of travel and a weekend of food poisoning (ugh!) I can turn to bragging about my beautiful 10 month old.

She is:

-laughing, laughing, laughing. She finds objects she likes and chuckles at them all day long. She looks through all of her blocks to find the one with the doggie and when she finds it, she laughs and smiles at it. Same with any kind of toy monkey. Today, one specific page of one of her cardboard books did it. She kept turning to the page with a smiling bear and letting loose. It is very cute.

-pulling herself up about 1000 times a day. chair rails, the couch, the TV cabinet, drawer pulls, the edge of her crib, really anything goes as a prop to help her practice standing. She's just on the edge of cruising, more in the endless up and down loop phase. And she laughs now more than cries when she falls, especially if we say "Abby went BOOM!"

-eating anything that is new. The mobility plus the advanced finger skills equal a very curious and able scavenger. She is not only endlessly curious about found objects, she also knows they are off limits and tries to pretend she doesn't have anything in her hand. Every tiny piece of dust, abandoned bead, piece of bark from someone's shoe, really anything, goes right into her expert pincer grip and then after she turns away, into her mouth. It is exhausting. On the other hand, she'll use this same curiosity to try nearly any new finger food we give her.

-understanding the word no. She is not allowed to touch the sound machine, the TV or Jake's crane. She reaches out, stops with her hand in front of the forbidden object and waits to be told no. Half of the time she touches anyway, and half of the time she turns, smiles very sweetly, and backs off. We're getting there!

-dancing. She'll dance to music, a baseline on the TV, or as she did the other day when Mike was using the chopper, to any rhythmic noise. Dancing means bouncing her whole body up and down, sometimes patting her legs, if she's seated. She LOVES music!

That's my girl!