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Downside to table food

I realized today that there is a downside to her feeding herself table food. Besides the mess and how long it takes her to eat...those, I can live with. Well, I'm learning to live with how long it takes her to eat. Today, I tried to feed her lunch. It was a Gerber or Heinz level 3 food and some applesauce and I really wanted us to get to the zoo so I was in a hurry. She accepted a few bites of each then refused everything and tried to get the spoon and/or bowl from me. I gave up on getting to the zoo by 1 (we got there about 2:30). I had cooked up some chicken and broken it into pieces yesterday. I quickly nuked some along with some peas and she was quite content...unless I let her tray get empty. Oh yeah, I kept the bowl and spoon.

So, she no longer likes the stuff in a jar that mama or daddy have to feed her. She wants the stuff that she can feed herself. It's also a lesson in patience for the mama. I can't rush the baby. We're no longer on my time. It's baby's time and she'll be done when she's good and ready to be done.

Spaghetti!

No, this isn't turning into the "What Did Taylor Have for Dinner" blog, but tonight's was just too cute to not share. Tonight she had some of our spaghetti, and yes, she really did have as much fun with it as it looks like.

Dinner

Two more steps in growing up (which Taylor continues to do much faster than either of us is prepared for) - eating "real" food and feeding it to herself. On the menu tonight was chicken, macaroni, peas and carrots. She loves to feed herself, and, after getting over earlier troubles with chunkier food, loves the food we give her.

Sleeping Baby

Nothing is cuter than a sleeping baby *sigh* The morning routine is that Brian gets up and gets in the shower. If Taylor wakes up while Brian's in the shower, I get up, get her and bring her back to bed with me until he's done. Yesterday morning, she woke up with daddy. He got her and put her in bed with me. She started off on my chest, wide awake and decided she didn't want that (too easy to go back to sleep, I guess) so she rolled over. I put a pillow to the side so she wouldn't roll too far. We talked and played peek-a-boo a little (she pulled the sheet over her own face, I said, "Where's Taylor??" and she'd pull it down and giggle!) She fell back to sleep, though, and was still asleep when it was my turn for the shower. Brian, being a good daddy, took some pictures - this was one of the better ones.

And this one was taken this morning. This sleeping position is entirely too cute and I decided to risk having the flash wake her up. It didn't.

Taylor meets McDowell

We introduced Taylor to Camp McDowell this weekend, at the Holy Apostles annual parish retreat. She survived midnight parties and rooms full of rocking chairs, and by Sunday morning was introducing herself to other parents and grandparents, and enjoying the ride and listening to Chloe the Cow on her first hayride.

This one's for Kerin

My sis-in-law wanted me to do this a month or so ago and I refused claiming it would be cruel and unusual. Yesterday, I couldn't resist and I was surprised at how cute she was...or maybe that's just the biased mama talking. :)

October pics continued

This was taken Oct 14th after we got home from a doctor's appointment. She was just entirely too cute. This was also when I learned that purple was a very VERY good color on her.

The weekend of Oct 19th, we had a visit from Uncle Phil, Aunt Leslie and cousin Adam. Even though Adam didn't want to, we made him hold Taylor. As he learned, she didn't break and she didn't spit up on him or swipe his glasses.

And, last but not least, a couple of pictures from Halloween! Well, a couple days before Halloween. There was a party at the apartment's clubhouse and we went. Again, entirely too cute! Oh yeah, Brian picked out the outfit. :)

New pics from October

All of these pictures were taken in October. Sorry we're just now getting around to posting them.

Taken October 12th - Taylor with her new activity table. This is the one that she and Rylee were pushing around the room while they were playing with it last week.

It's a neat little table. With a gearshift, you can go through the alphabet. There's a paint palette that, when you turn it, it tells you the color of whatever the picture is. There's a radio that, when you turn the dial, it makes the sound of whatever's in the picture. And! There's a little 3-note piano and a telephone (she loves the phone...)

On Oct 14th, we had to lower the crib mattress to its lowest position. Our baby girl was just getting too tall and too good at standing up in her crib. :) The crib is pushed away from the wall because of the electrical outlet that we didn't have safety things on yet. Also, this was when we got a really good look at her cruising. You can't tell from these pictures but she slowly but surely made her way around the whole crib.

Also, it's now a common occurrence to walk in her room and see her standing there smiling at you. It makes you forget that she was *supposed* to be asleep. :)

And that's all for this post!

Our baby's 10 months old today!

And, I'm sorry we haven't posted anything since October! We've got pictures to post - including Halloween - and I'm hoping to get those up before the weekend's over.

Don't know if y'all remember but her crawl has been the "soldier" crawl for the longest time. A month or so ago, she start occasionally crawling "normal" but could get to what she wanted quicker by crawling the way she knew. Well! She is now crawling on hands & knees and is surprisingly quick. She loves the bathroom and kitchen because of the linoleum. It makes neat sounds when you smack it with your hand or with a plastic star (I'm sure our downstairs neighbors love it as much as we do :) ).

She had her first playdate this past Wednesday. A little boy named Riley. Brian & Riley's dad went to college together and they live near B'ham so we got together. We learned that Rylee & Taylor have a toy in common - a little star stacker thing that plays music when you push the top. We enjoyed a night of watching them fight, so to speak, over the stars. They also both enjoyed the activity table we have and, with their combined weight, they managed to push it across the room and then some. It was a lot of fun and we look forward to more playdates.

Oo! She's also clapping her hands now! When we say, "Yay!" and clap, she grins real big and starts clapping as well. She sometimes says something while clapping but it's not a definite "Yay" or anything...but she makes noise and grins real big.

We also had a big shock Thursday evening. Brian cleaned out his car (no, that's not the shock). He found the emergency diaper bag he had in his trunk - complete with diapers. The diapers were size 1 and we just awwwed and oooed over how little they were and couldn't believe her cute tush used to fit into something that small! They were cute and really gave us an eye opener on how much she's grown.

I think that's it for now. Sorry about having so much time between posts.