10 Months Old!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I know Lyla certainly did.  She must have been awfully good, because Santa brought her tons of presents!

It was so much fun seeing her open them...the aftermath, not so much fun.  It looked like a tornado touched down in our living room, because there were toys and clothes, wrapping paper and tissue paper, and bags and boxes in every single room.  I thought it would NEVER get clean (I'm a bit dramatic at times), but of course it is *almost* back to normal.  Our living room seems much smaller now though, because it is filled with some of her new toys.  I had Chad move some of them down to the basement so we can rotate them out.  It would be wondeful if we (still) had a finished basement, but a flood in September 2008 ruined all of our carpet!  We have had plans to get new carpet since then, but it didn't seem like an emergency--until Christmas hit.  Now we have plans to immediately get carpet in the basement so we can turn it into a toy room.  I can't wait to get my living room back!  It will be nice to have most of her big toys down there, so we can just hang out down there during the day while she is playing, and still have a living room.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I can report that!

In other news, Lyla turned 10 months yesterday!  I can't believe we will be celebrating her FIRST BIRTHDAY in 2 months.  Where has the time gone?!  She had her 9 month well-check on December 22nd (even though she was almost 10 months).  She is a whopping 24 pounds and 31 inches tall!  As usual, she is "off the charts," which means she is above the 97th percentile for weight and height.  Her wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Moustafa, said she is doing great!  She finally started "real" crawling a few days ago, and is improving every day.  Up until now, she was perfectly content rolling everywhere to get into things.  It's funny, people think that just because she wasn't crawling, that she wasn't "getting into things"--HA!  Not even close.  That little girl is into EVERYTHING.  She is such a busybody and is always on the go, and can't sit still for even a second.  I would love to just be able to cuddle her while we relax on the couch and watch a movie or read a book, but that doesn't happen!  She wants to be on the move, playing with something.  I sneak my snuggles in while I'm babywearing--most days, that's the only way she will let me "hold" her for very long! 

Oh yeah--remember how I said she was getting Two New Toofers?  Turns out she was only getting "One New Toof" (hmm...it doesn't sound quite as cute when you say it like that!).  One of her bottom teeth popped through, and the other one is still at a standstill.  At her doctor's appointment when I told her doctor that she was teething, he looked in her mouth and said "Yes it looks like these top teeth will be popping through first."  I told him that one bottom one already came through and he said the tops should be coming through any time now too.  So, it sounds like she is working on 3 more teeth right now...and let tell you, she is letting it be known.  She is up every 2 to 3 hours at night (RIGHT before this, she finally slept through the whole night two nights in a row--now we are back to newborn baby sleep), she is fighting naps and sleep like crazy, and she is so fussy, whiney, and clingy during the day.  I feel so bad for her, that there isn't really anything I can do to help her out.  Remember how I said her Baltic Amber Teething Necklace was helping?  Well I can't imagine what she would be like without it!  Poor baby is such a miserable teether.  I am thankful that I'm off work with her for the next week, since she just wants "mommy" most of the time...hopefully she will be through the majority of the misery by the time she has to start going back to the babysitters.  For her sake, and mine.  I hate leaving her as it is, but it is especially hard when I know she isn't feeling good. 

Like I said, Lyla is such a busybody that she doesn't slow down until I "make her" for naptime or bed time.  I have to take her into her bedroom, turn off the lights, turn on her soothing rain music, put on her special Peke Moe blanket, and then I usually nurse and rock her to drowsiness/sleep (What?  You nurse and rock your baby to sleep?  She will NEVER learn to sleep on her own!!!  Please...)  I always see these babies that just fall asleep while they are playing, or fall asleep while snuggling their mommies on the couch....not my baby girl.  She doesn't want to miss out on anything!  Well, remember how I said she was fighting sleep like crazy?  Last night she started screaming and crying when I took her into her bedroom to begin our nighttime routine.  I tried several different things to calm her down, and nothing worked!  I figured she was just wound up from  playing still, so I brought her into the living room (with her Peke Moe blanket still on), turned off the lights, and sat on the couch to "watch TV."  For awhile she fought it and kept trying to sit up and look around for things to play with, but I just rubbed her forehead and her back and she finally leaned back on my chest and I put my head against hers and just kept saying "shhh, shhh"...after awhile she stopped moving around and I told Chad to see if her eyes were closed, and lo and behold, they were!  I couldn't help but laugh that I had "tricked" her into sleeping.  I was also pretty thrilled that she fell asleep in the living room!  She hasn't done that since she was about 4 months old.  So then again today for naptime, we went through the same screaming and crying routine, and so I kicked back in the recliner with Jasper curled up at our feet.  She tried to grab at him a few times, and she just watched the dogs and the TV for awhile, and I really didn't think she would fall asleep today, but then again, she leaned her head back on my chest and was out within a minute or two!  What is with this baby right now?!  Teething really throws her off!  Is it odd that I'm SO excited that she fell asleep in the living room twice? 

I was also this excited when she fell asleep while I was wearing her in the Ergo in the mall while Christmas shopping! Ahh, the things mothers get excited about!

One more thing--Santa brought me a nice camera (not top-of-the-line-nice, but better-than-any-camera-I-have-ever-owned-nice) for Christmas!  I really want to learn a thing or two about photography so hopefully I can take some nice pictures of my beautiful baby girl!