ten months

Seeing as Nell is already nearly a year old (how did that happen?), I thought I should finally get around to posting her ten month pictures.

At ten months old, Nell had three bottom teeth and no top teeth.  She loved clicking her tongue and making the sound "Tuh! Tuh! Tuh!" with great enthusiasm.  After a brief hiatus, she regained her ability to make the sounds "Mama mama."  Her babbles grew to drawn-out "sentences," and I even noticed her "talking" - and smiling - in her sleep.

Her understanding of cause and effect became increasingly clear.  If she did something that made us laugh, she'd immediately do it again, and again, and again.  And we began to see the first hints of a wave, a gesture she initially reserved particularly for my friend Melissa, who is an excellent baby-waver.

She loved riding in grocery carts, loved playing with her feet, loved taking baths (and hated getting out).  She thought dropping objects from heights was the best game ever.  She liked reading, but thought the best part about books was poking her finger into the binding.  The screws on her high chair held a similar fascination.

Everyone kept saying she was days, moments even, away from crawling, but she preferred to scoot around, one leg folded in front and the other one sticking out behind her.  Her method wasn't yet perfected, but she was beginning to get the hang of actually going places she wanted to go.

Just before turning ten months old, Nell began to give me some hope about the possibility of actually, you know, eating food.  She ate sweet potatoes!  And avocado!  And then pears!  She didn't gag!  She liked them!  I began to think that I wouldn't have to nurse this child until college, after all.

A typical progression of the faces of Nell are fairly well expressed in the following three photos.  First, she's happy:

Next, she's excited:

And finally, she's so excited that she has to cough.

Yes, cough.  Because the coughing game, which gave her so much joy, seemed to develop in this child the sense that when one is quite happy, one coughs.  We feel sort of bad for confusing her by playing this game with her so often, but not bad enough to stop, because let's face it, it's cute. 

Dear Ellen,

Your emotional state this month has had me a little mystified and more than a little curious.  Twice when your Uncle Andrew dropped by to visit, you took one look at him and promptly burst into heart-wrenching sobs.  It really got me wondering what goes on in your head.  Were you sad that he got his own place and moved out after living with us since before you were born?  Were you so happy to see him that you felt a little overwhelmed?  Do you just hate him?  (Just kidding about that last one, of course.)

It will be so much fun when you can tell me all the interesting things you're thinking and feeling, little one.

Lovelovelove,

Mom