10 months

Nora,

I seriously cannot imagine life without your little sweet personality. We are more complete with you in our family and ohmygoodness you are so cute!

You are becoming such a little person. You are mimicking noises we make, waving, clapping, raising your hands, scrunching your nose, yelling, dancing, giggling, squealing, and screaming all the time. You are getting to be quite loud when we are home, but you are a little quiet personality when around strangers. You makes us laugh a lot and we just can't get over your happy easygoing way. You are really good with other people (always happy in the church nursery), but you are definitely apprehensive about anyone else besides Mommy and Daddy. You will lean your head against us or reach for us when you are unsure or shy, but you don't usually cry or act afraid (just mostly confused).

You are still not consistently sleeping through the night, but I love you just the same. You do take two naps and then go to bed anywhere between 8-8:30pm. When it comes to napping, sometimes you will just hang out in your bed talking, trying to open the dresser drawers and pull things into your bed, or just yelling. This can go on for over and hour with no actual sleep taking place. I usually have to nurse you before I lay you down because it helps to calm you down and you are more likely to fall asleep quicker once in bed. I would like to stop doing this, but at the same time, I really love the sweet cuddle time with you. We rock and sing and you lay still against me and it is all very sweet. You love your little flannel receiving blankets still and that has become your little comfort in bed. The crazy thing about you and sleep is that you can go forever without it and act like it is really no big deal. For instance, we kept you out till 11pm for fireworks on July 4th and you didn't even act one bit fazed. You were having a ball. Granted, you did wake up every few hours in the night after that, but whose to blame you. You have no definitive sleep schedule, but if you don't get both your naps in you will think that you are napping at bedtime and want to wake up and play around 10 pm. Seriously. You are just crazy.

You love to play! You keep yourself so contented and entertained with toys and it is a blast watching you play and enjoy yourself. You will sit and play or crawl off somewhere (usually Aidan's room) and play happily and quietly as long as no one is interrupting you or bothering you (Aidan). You really would rather be left alone when playing which has become really evident lately with all the screaming that goes on when Aidan bothers you. You love to play with him on your terms and about once a day I can count on some huge laugh fest between the two of you, but that's about it. You still really love dolls and stuffed animals a lot. And you also love to put things in your mouth and carry them around when crawling (so hilarious).

You are an expert little mover. You are becoming more and more steady with standing and you are cruising along things all the time. You are an expert crawler and you like to crawl with your feet on the ground and your little booty in the air. You are into pushing things around lately and we caught you pushing a little suitcase along the floor and walking behind it the other day. You showed absolutely no interest in walking up until just recently. You love to hold our hands and walk all around the apartment. You don't usually have a specific destination, you  just want to walk around.

You love to eat....still. You are nursing anywhere from 5-7 times a day. You are very attached to me in that way. But, you are also an excellent eater. You have started eating more table food and are pretty adamant about eating when we are, or eating what we have. You like grilled chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, sloppy joes, frozen yogurt, peas, bananas, oatmeal, apple sauce, strawberries, tortillas, lentils, and more. You never pass up the opportunity to eat something and are always willing to try something new. And, I just noticed today that you cut your 7th tooth. I honestly didn't even know you were working on it, but I touched its sharp point today and was surprised. I can't believe how many teeth you already have.

I love you so much and am so blessed by your sweet presence in my life. I seriously don't want you to grow up and not be my baby anymore, but I am also very excited to see who you are going to become and get to know you more as you continue to develop. God has truly blessed me to be your mother.

I love you dearly,

Mama