Yesterday Addy-Mai turned 10 months old and today is the 4 month anniversary from her G&R, the day we met her, held her, became her parents by law and not just in heart. It was a big day in our lives and we were too busy to get online to write her snapshot but I composed it in my head as we wished her a Happy 10 months.

This will be shorter than usual because I’m on a laptop, which I so hate. And I have no access to great photos and other goodies to add.

10 months ROCKS! Addy-Mai is so much fun, we can hardly stand it. Things aren’t dreamland-perfect but they often feel that way, which is pretty remarkable I think.

 When I think of Addy-Mai at 10 months, I think of:

• The Appetite. I’ve talked about that a lot here over the last month. The girl can pack it away! She is the only child of mine that has ever required their own meal at restaurants before the age of 2 or 3. She EATS. And she loves her food. She is fully on regular table foods and I’ve stopped trying to ease in allergenic foods. She just eats what we eat. And not the watered down ‘lite’ version either. The full blooded, meat and potatoes with all the condiments version. I have yet to find a food she won’t eat. Wonderfully she has scaled WAY back on the formula and now drinks about 2-3 bottles during the day and 2 bottles at night.
• The Sleep. Hubby happened upon a Sleep Solution called The Down Throw. She loves to sleep ON it with her comforter over the top of her. She sleeps so many hours straight this way without needing a bottle that it FEELS like a full night’s sleep. She is cutting out a nap so now she sleeps 2 hours from 11-1pm and then usually a shorter nap later and she still ends up going to bed around 8-9pm. Brilliant. Things are DEFINITELY improving in the Sleep Department.
• The Faces. The girl makes the faces. Kissy faces, angry faces, silly faces with wide open mouths. She is a crack-up. LOVE the faces.
• The Speech. She’s a talker! She is learning new words. To date she says mama, dada, noah and has immitated a few other noises and sounds. She also likes to say mmmm when she eats (see point one - haha). Also her speech recognition is finally starting to really bloom. I think she knows all of the kids by name, she definitely knows her name, she seems to understand most of what we say now. Plus she is a quick learner in the sign language department. It is pretty cool to show her a sign just a few times and have her do it spontaneously after that.
• The Teeth. Still two. She has been teething in the last few days so we think 3 and 4 are imminent.
• The Hair. Still growing! She has enough for a little hair tie now but she prefers to eat them so they aren’t exactly safe.
• The Brothers and Sister. The girl just adores her family. She loves to be coddled over and played with. I think I said something about this the other day but parenting Addy with 6 siblings? A breeze! The hardest part is that they all want her all of the time. One little girl (you know who you are!!!) loves Addy most and will even change (BEG to change) the poopies. That make dibs on who gets to feed her next, hold her next, etc. It is actually a challenging balance to strike between attachment-promoting behavior and family-promoting behavior but I think we are far enough in our attachment that Addy relishes the time with her siblings without comprimising her attachment with her parents. Recently I took Addy to a restaurant and she was soooo shy and cautious and interested in the other nearby kids but not open and flirty and comfortable. If you were a fly on my wall you would think that Addy really loves kids but the truth is that Addy loves HER kids, her brothers and sister. The other kids are a little scary, still. This makes me feel so good about her attachment and bond within our family unit.
• The Music. She can’t stop dancing. She loves the recorder her sister taught her to play. She loves to bang on the piano. She loves to dance, sing, listen to music.
• The Walking. She’s not doing it yet but ALMOST. She is so close. She stands and sits and does the good ole Vietnamese Squat to play with her toys. She crawls really fast and cruises around complicated things like a hinged door. She’s taken a few tentative first steps but nothing intentional - more like trying to catch her balance while she free-stands. Soon, Addy-Mai, my big girl.
• My Lover Girl: She gives lip kisses, she gives hugs, she loves her babies, rocks them, kisses them, holds them close. She is such a Mama, already. I can not WAIT to hear “I love you”.

So that’s 10 months! Her first birthday is so close. I have already ordered her birthday dress which is too adorable for words. Once it comes, I’ll take a picture. I just know she will LOVE her cake! haha. Noah was a cake maniac on his first birthday so Addy has some stiff competition. I predict she will be walking by her first birthday and, wow, I can’t imagine what else at this point. She should have a few more teeth and a few more signs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Adoption, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.