10 months old

Today Alita’s cousin Maeve Abigail was born in NY, and it reminded me that we should update the blog to celebrate Al’s surviving her 10th month. I say surviving because she has developed a keen interest in walking and will cruise around the house holding on to whatever’s handy- couch, ottomans, passing pant leg. She has not yet learned which objects are stationary and will support her, and which are
going to leave her waving her little hands in the air, falling over backward in slow motion as her now-huge eyes stare at us with a mixture of bafflement and accusation… thud.

Often, she only needs one hand to support her in her travels, and she’s determined to get around as efficiently as possible- if she reaches the end of the couch, for example, she’ll stick her hand up and out without taking her eyes off her goal (usually something shiny across the room). Only if we don’t immediately offer a hand for support will she look up at us as if to say “come on slowpoke, I got places to be!” Once balance is assured she’ll take off, nearly at a run if she has her eye on a particularly tasty treat like a set of keys. Or the nanny.

She doesn’t actually try to eat the nanny. But she is sure excited to see Nadia every morning, and as she does whenever she sees something exciting (a picture of a baby, Obama magnet, those keys) she’ll grin, wave her hands around, kick her little legs and yell “Doh! Doh! Doh!”

Speaking of grins, it’s no longer toothless- she has one lower front tooth, and the other one is on its way. It’s a little razor. Hasn’t bitten the milk fairy (Mom) yet, but if she does we’re in for a rather precipitous weaning. Aside from “Doh!” her vocabulary has progressed to include raspberries, duck noises (kid you not- sounds like Donald Duck) and monosyllabic near-singing. Kind of like Bjork only not as loud or annoying. She laughs sometimes, and chuckles frequently- usually, but not always, at something in particular.

She’s close to understanding the waving bye-bye concept, and she actually looks at books when we read them, as opposed to immediately trying to eat them (she does still try to eat them, just not immediately). She bounces and waggles her butt around when she hears the music of certain toys, and we think she’s dancing- either that or music makes her lose her balance. Therefore we figured she was ready to learn how to mosh, so she was Headbanger Baby for Halloween- Matthew gave her a Motley Crue T-shirt from LA, and we built on that. You can’t see the sweet spiked collar (thanks PetCo) or black nail polish in the picture here, but trust me they were badass.