10 Month Update

Dear Lana,

Today you are 10 months old. You have made some amazing changes in the past month, including the development of a new skill that turned our household upside down in the course of a single day. You began to crawl. The word sounds completely innocuous as I write it now. Crawl. It sounds slow and leisurely, like a day at the pool (without an infant slapping water in your face and testing the limits of a swim diaper, of course).

Your version of crawling, however, is anything but slow and leisurely. You spent a good portion of the month testing out the crawling thing – assuming the standard position and then taking a couple of tentative crawls before becoming frustrated and lying down. Then one evening last week you decided on a new approach. You sat with me on the floor of your room after your bath, deep in thought and too distracted to fight me as I smeared various lotions and butt pastes on your delicate little skin. Suddenly, you reached a conclusion, which I can only imagine must have been, “I need to go fast. Speed is key.” In an instant you were crawling, if you can call little naked limbs moving at warp speed across the room crawling. You reached your bookcase in three seconds flat and began happily removing stuffed animals and books and relocating them across the room. I should have read the writing on the wall then. But I was too proud to realize the implications.

The very next day you embarked on a crawling tour of mayhem. It began at our entertainment center, where you reached the cabinet door, wrenched it open, and began pulling out things I haven’t seen in years, like my pre-marriage social security card. Next you headed over to the fireplace to pull on the screen and test to see if anyone in the family would allow you to crawl right in and play with the fake logs and embers. Granny T? No. Not even your outstretched arms and puppy dog eyes could persuade her. Daddy? No way. Mommy? Still no.

Frustrated but not defeated, you worked your way toward the kitchen where you discovered the door stopper. You were immediately thrilled by the satisfying “Boing!” noise it made when pulled on and further delighted to discover the detachable plastic end. At that moment I recalled reading some warning about those detachable things in John’s Be Prepared book, but there I was completely unprepared and forced to wrestle the choking hazard away from you. I barely had time to ponder the irony before you moved on to Rico’s water bowl, where you began to dip your hands into the water and flick it across the kitchen floor.

The final stop on the mayhem tour was the outlet that we overzealously plugged up with safety covers before you were born, only to remove them several months later when we realized that even people with babies need to plug stuff in. Your little wet fingers were headed straight for the outlet holes before I scooped you up and installed the covers once again.

In non-crawling news, you began doing a lot of other cool things this month like clapping your hands, patting your toys, the dog, and your parents, and handing out “presents” to friends and family. On Father’s Day you scooped out pieces of pinestraw from the pool and gave them to your father – a gift that he seemed to enjoy as much as the tennis shoes that I carefully selected and wrapped for him.

You spent a good portion of the month engrossed in your books, which you love to spread all over the living room floor. You study them with intent concentration, flipping the pages and stopping to investigate any special flaps or textures. You often try to read them to us, and your babble takes on a completely different cadence when you are “reading” aloud.

You’ve also taken to mimicking our speech and sounds. You’ve heard the word “no” about a hundred times since learning to crawl, so when I asked if you wanted any juice this morning I swear you responded, “NO!” You have mastered the “M” sound now and often launch into a steady chant of “Ma ma ma ma mo mo ma ma mo” whenever you are upset or want my attention. You make a similar “Da da da” noise around your father, and one day last week when he came home from work we could’ve sworn that you said, “Hey Dad.” The way you said it was so casual and grown up that I would have been not the least bit surprised if you next asked to borrow the car.

You’ve done so much growing up in the last month that it absolutely boggles my mind. One thing has not changed, though. You are still an absolute joy to be around and everyone who meets you loves you. Your grandparents are completely head over heels for you and we cannot go out in public without at least five strangers stopping to call you “gorgeous, pretty, or adorable.” You have the most beautiful, ear to ear grin that I’ve ever seen on a baby and a laugh that melts my heart. You are more than I ever dared to hope for, my precious Lana Bear.

Love,

Mom