Moving & Grooving

At 10 months, Sophia is definitely finding movement. As you may recall, her preferred method of movement was to crawl backwards. I'm happy to report that if there is something motivating enough (another baby, my cellphone, a "little person" toy) she'll happily crawl forward.
She has been employing the "Butt in the air" crawl often - it looks something like this:













Last week, when this video was shot, proved to be fun, if not frustrating for her. But she has since managed to get where she is going.


Pulling up & standing are also big on her list. The coffee table (our trunk) is a personal favorite of hers. Here she is (sporting her new baby legs tights).

She also figured out how to crawl up stairs this week! This is a big feat, as we don't have stairs in our condo - we have to put her purposefully on the stairs in the hallway and help her work her way up. She got it pretty quickly, and as you can see, my keys are a good motivator!

Breastfeeding - Approaching a transition

It was always my goal to breastfeed Sophia through her 1-year birthday. From what I've read, and with the routine we've got down, it's the best option for us. I particularly enjoy our morning time together - it's a nice way to ease into the day for both of us. With 10 months down already, I've started to think a lot about the transition.

Right now, I feed her directly 3 times a day and she gets a bottle of pumped milk before bed. We started the bottle before bed because my supply was at its lowest at the end of the day (as is most women's) and we wanted to make sure she had a nice, full tummy for sleeping. It's also a great opportunity for Dave to participate in the putting to bed process. The other two feedings occur when she wakes up after first and second nap. She is eating lots of solids, so the stress from the beginning of her life of not being quite sure how much milk she was getting has eased up entirely.

What is funny is that the more active she is become (crawling, pulling up), the less interested she is in eating. Yesterday, we made it about 8 minutes before she was completely distracted and disinterested. (Note that we were sitting quietly in her room with nothing really to distract her - no music, people or anything. She manages to distract herself! with trying to move all around) I ended up pumping and giving her about 3ozs because I knew she was still hungry. We're working on beefing up the solids even more, but much like breastfeeding, it's hard to know exactly how much they're eating (vs throwing on the floor!)

One thing I won't miss is the pumping. I've been fairly dedicated to pumping 3 times a day. Once in the morning after her first feeding and twice at night - when she gets her bottle at bedtime and once before I go to bed. That has covered the nightly bottle with some extra to increase our freezer supply. My hope it to be able to stop pumping the end of this month, with enough "banked" in the fridge to cover her nightly bottles through the 1-year mark.

Come November, the plan is to move her onto cow's milk for 2-3 feedings and to continue to nurse her for the morning feeding for awhile longer until she's ready to give it up. We'll see how it all plays out. We'll probably start with a nice half mommy milk, half cow milk transition and go from there. I do love the fact that I can soothe her at a moment's notice (especially in the middle of the night with teething) so I'm not willing to give up breastfeeding entirely. Breastfeeding truly has formed this bond that we'll never lose; it will just evolve.

10 Months - how big? Sooo big!

Today is Sophia's 10 month birthday. I honestly can't believe it's September already. She has changed so much over the summer. To look back at the photos when we first got to Newport on Memorial Day and to look at today - what a difference!!

No doctor's appointment this month, but she is definitely gaining weight. With all the tasty "solids" she eats, how can she not? Besides loving most every fruit, we recently started cheese, homemade turkey meatballs, scrambled egg yolk with pasta and olive oil, mashed potatoes, broccoli & cheese balls, pieces of turkey from my sandwich - well, anything from what I'm eating she will generally try - as evidence, her first bite of lobster from my lobster roll yesterday! She loved it.

On the locomotion front, she is figuring out forward crawling, but would much rather work on her standing. She gets all over the floor, wherever she needs to go, but it is in a crawl, sit, scoot & full layout combination that is adorable. Here is a quick video of her working on standing:



She is up to 5 teeth now - her latest came in this weekend - upper right incisor. It always takes me a bit to realize that she is teething. But I'm catching on. She's been a good sport about them. She actually chewed one of her puffs with her two front teeth the other day - it was so cool to watch! We also started brushing her teeth and gums. No cavities here!

Finally, her newest trick is clapping. She does this when she gets really excited or is proud of herself for accomplishing something new. My favorite clapping incident happened today in the car - I guess I took a corner at a decent rate of speed and from the back seat I hear her squealing with delight and clapping! When I looked back in the mirror, she had a big smile.

I guess my daughter has the need for speed. Hmm, wonder where she gets that from???