And I gladly STAND UP...

I can't write the title of this post without laughing. Unfortunately, only my brother and sister-in-law, and maybe my parents, will even remember why! We will have to ask Uncle Brent to give Amity a lesson in choreography at cousins' camp this summer!

Well, back to our post title...Amity is standing up on her own! This morning, she was playing at her Leapfrog music table and I was eating my lunch at the kitchen table. All of the sudden, I realized that she was standing up while playing her piano and I had not left her in the standing position! I cheered like crazy and texted the news to her Da-duh. As the day progressed, she pulled to standing at my chair, on her toy box, and in her crib. Of course, we are still working to help her understand what to do when she gets tired of standing! I am trying to show her that there are other options besides crying until Mom or Dad comes to the rescue!

Tales of the Cheesy Grin

Last Tuesday night, Amity woke up once in the night and Dennis went in to hold her for a few minutes before she fell back to sleep. She was especially excited about her bottle the next morning so we thought maybe she was going through a growth spurt. On Wednesday evening at supper time, we loaded her up on homemade pizza, broccoli, blueberries, and a bottle to try to combat any remaining growth spurt.
Well, I don't think I will be making pizza for awhile! In the middle of the night, we heard her cry out. I thought maybe she was hot and went to turn the AC on. By the time, I was coming back down the hallway, she had stopped crying. I decided to get back in bed and wait to see if she cried anymore but we didn't hear a peep out of her until almost seven the next morning.
Just before seven, I entered her room, turned on her lamp, and realized that my little one and her bed looked very different from the night before and smelled strangely of pizza...dried regurgitated pizza!
The good news is that after a morning of combing pizza out of her hair in the bathtub, stripping the bed, doing laundry, and giving LOTS and LOTS of "Mommy-is-so-so-so-sorry-hugs", Amity was playing music and giving lots of smiles, including her newly learned "cheesy grin"! Ugh! We may have to think of a new name for this smile! Cheesy makes me think of pizza!

Da-duh

Amity has been saying "da-da" for months now and "ma-ma" for the past few weeks. However, we sadly came to the realization that she had no idea of the magnitude of those words. Well, all of that changed tonight...at least for one of us! Amity started saying "Dad" with a heavy emphasis on the final consonant! Of course, this happened after hearing her Daduh say the word only about 100 times tonight between dinner and bath and a bottle. As you can see, he is just a little bit thrilled! Let's see what Momuh can accomplish tomorrow!

Puppy Love

Is there anything sweeter than a girl and her puppy? Probably not...unless the puppy has to make a visit to the laundry room or accidentally goes MIA! If this attachment lasts much longer, we made need to look into getting a puppy #2!

Ten months old!

The 7th is here again and Miss Amity is ten months old! We can't believe that she will turn ONE in just two months!

This past month has been full of lots of changes as Amity has become fully mobile. This clip of our little pink gangster does not do justice showing the extent that this girl is on the move but it does capture her curiosity.

Amity continues to be advanced in her eating habits! :) She has had the pincer grasp down pat for several months now. While she still eats some homemade baby food on occasion when our food is a little too grown-up, we are sharing our table food with her more and more. Below she is enjoying her first waffle made from the Belgian waffle-maker that her daddy bought her mommy for Valentine's Day. Believe it or not, it WAS a romantic gift!

Reading is always a happy time with Amity and usually merits lots of smiles, clapping, and kicking. Lately, we have really loved our little Dr. Seuss books (thanks to the Greenes!) and our collection of Eric Carle books (thank you, Emily!).

We also have a new appreciation for cloth books. The other day, Amity was holding on to one of her board books as I put her in her pack and play for independent play time. I let her keep the book along with the other toys already in the pack and play. When her thirty minutes of playtime was over, I found her happily playing and didn't happen to notice the little balls of paper laying all around her pack and play. Later that day, I was changing the sheet and couldn't figure out where those SPITBALLS came from. Had her brief moments visiting daddy's school already begun to have an impact? I then discovered that the corner was missing from our beloved Numbers book. Thank you, Kellermans! It is obviously a well-loved book but, for its own protection, it won't be accompanying Amity to her pack and play anymore!

Amity's mobility has been accompanied with a lot more personality. We predict she is going to be rather independent and a bit daring. There is not much that will scare, surprise, or startle this little girl (except for pulling a shirt over her head...she is just not a big fan). She is quite the adventurer...

as well as a ham! I wonder where she gets that from! Maybe from the one whose shoes are pictured here? I should admit that she did not put these shoes on herself. She prefers to put shoes in her mouth and seems to have a special radar for finding our shoes. I have been working on showing her that it is much more fun to put shoes on our feet than in our mouth.

As April gets closer, I often think about where we were a year ago this time. We had no idea the fun and joy that was in store! Happy 10 months, sweet girl!