Lucky Month-day update!

It's your 10 month birthday today, and it's supposedly a very lucky day (7-7-07). It's all the luckier because it's YOUR monthday!!
This past month you've really made some changes. On the gross motor skills front, you've started creeping, that is, you are moving forward with your arms and legs, but your giant belly is still on the floor. You are making efforts at lifting up, but you really are heavy, so it'll probably take a little more muscle than you have just yet. But practice makes perfect, so keep it up! You've also figured out how to sit up from laying down. It was kind of tricky as for a really long time you'd try so hard to sit up pilates-style by lifting your head and curling up, and it just wasn't happening. So you learned the easy way and are now very good at it. You're still not quite pulling up by yourself, and when you do get up you lean pretty heavily on what ever it is you are up on, but as time goes on, I know you'll get it. Although you are desperate to get moving, especially when we hang out with other older kids, I'm not in any great rush to have you walking, we still need to get the house baby safe/clean for your new found mobility, I don't want to worry about another layer of baby proofing just yet, so take your time!
In the fine motor skills area you are still doing great. So great in fact that now we have to be super careful and cleaner than we've ever been, because you scoot around the ground and find the tiniest little piece of fluff and immediately pick it up and eat it. It is pretty nasty. If only you would do that with the delicious food I put in front of you! It's not so much that you are a picky eater (as the floor treats prove) but that you refuse to let people feed you. You are determined to feed yourself and that often times means a face and body full of apple sauce or oatmeal and maybe one cc gets in your tummy by the end of the meal. But things that I can cut into little pieces like bread, cheese, fruit, and some vegetables, you love. You continue to make the funniest faces when given something new, it's like your not sure if you're going to hate it, so you start out with that assumption, then if it pleases you, your face turns from disgust to mmmmmmmmmm. It's really funny.
Nursing is still happening, but you've started this thing while nursing where you squirm around grabbing your feet, and often kick me in the face if we are siting up, or if we're laying down, you kick me in the belly. You also twist and squirm and get distracted by the slightest thing. It's proving to be just a bit annoying and I don't want our nursing time to become something that I dread, so we'll have to see what happens with that. Hopefully it's just a phase, and you'll return to the focused eater of yore, or we might wean a little earlier then planned.
The kicking isn't the only unfortunate new trick this month. You have developed some other habits that I'm not crazy about in the last month. Particularly you have begun throwing "barinches" as Ana calls them. Tantrums. Yikes! You are so advanced, I had no idea a 10 month old could be so willful. It's true, now when there is something you want, like nail clippers, a screwdriver, whatever mommy happens to be eating, or something you don't want, to be changed, to leave the park, to GO TO SLEEP, you have a little barinche. Abuela says you are just testing your boundaries, mommy says you are testing the limits of her sanity. As much as I know you'd love it, you can't run around with a poopy diaper all day, nor is it a good idea to poke at the dog with a screwdriver. Up until literally a few weeks ago, I would say you were the most mellow and easy going baby I've ever met. Now you are putting up a fight for all kinds of things! But that's what parenting is about, you decide what are the things worth fighting for, and let the other things go. If we don't start saying no now, to things that can hurt you, or when you are hurting other people, it will only get worse, and you'll be the kind of person that no one wants to be around, and that's something that I definitely don't want for you.
I think part of the barinche phenomenon is a result of your desire to get moving and decide for yourself where you want to be and what you want to do. Soon enough you'll get there, and we'll all be chasing off after you! But for now we are still working on the sign language, which I think helps with the frustration. Actually being able to get your point across alleviates your irritation with us, even if it's about the light, or the dog, or the fan. In other communication news, you are still babbling a lot and Daddy and I both have heard you cry "mama" when Daddy puts you to sleep. Even if you aren't calling me, it's a pretty heart wrenching cry.
The only thing I'm going to say about sleep this month is that we've started putting you on a mattress on the floor when you first fall asleep because you were sitting up in bed when Daddy checked on you the other night. It scared us straight, and now the farthest you can fall is two inches. Which you did last night when you rolled off the air mattress and woke up with a yelp.
Finally, you also had your first Emergency Room trip this month. Please for Mommy and Daddy's sake, let's not have a repeat any time soon! We were really scared when we came home and saw how sick you were. I walked in and don't know who was paler, you or Daddy! Thankfully it wasn't too serious and you got over your tummy bug in about 24 hours. Any longer and we might have had to return to the hospital because you refuse to drink the pedialyte. I can't blame you it's nastacular. Hopefully we won't have to rely on that again in the near future.
A pretty good month in the end, and it'll just get better as I'm now home 4 days a week! We're definitely taking advantage of the nice weather, and will keep it up as long as possible. I can't wait to see what next month brings!
Love,
Mama
Edited to add: I almost forgot one other new thing you've started, and if I don't write about it now, you'll probably stop doing it by next month! You are so interested in cars and actually all things mechanical, fans, wheels, hinges etc. but the thing you've started doing is making a car brrrrrrr noise with all your toys, be they cars, trucks, horses or seals. It's really a riot. I didn't want to forget that you started that a few weeks ago! xo mommy