Rosa's ten-month letter

Dear Rosie,
We're writing this to you as Rosie because that is what we nearly exclusively call you these days.  I'm sure you'll prefer Rosa at some point, but we'll get there when we get there.  Happy ten months!  As usual, time seems to be speeding up and the last month has sped by.  That is especially true since you've been sleeping so well, which I will get to in a bit.  Here are some of the things you've been up to in the last month:

You are doing all sorts of new things.  First, you have learned to pull up to standing, after about a month of practicing.  It's really cool to see you try to do something over and over and finally put all the pieces together and then do it consistently.  Once you are standing, you can cruise if you reallllly want something, but mostly you are content to stay in a standing position.  From there, you can grab all sorts of things, or just admire where you are.

You learned to say your first meaningful sounds during the last month, which come out sounding like "buh! buh!" You know that we always wave goodbye from the window in the front room, and so whenever we go near it, you will start waving and saying bye bye.  You also will do this upon being asked, unless, of course, there is someone else there, in which case you will most definitely not do it!  Watching you say bye bye is just about the cutest thing ever, so we ask you to do it all the time.  You are probably very confused about when it is socially appropriate to say goodbye by this point!

You have continued to show off your fine motor control by painstakingly vacuuming our house with your fingers.  You find any and all small objects and immediately put them into your mouth.  Despite our best efforts to keep things off the floors, your siblings are at the age where small things will naturally end up there, and so we have retrieved all manner of objects from your little grasp and mouth.  We call you our human vacuum cleaner, and you have consumed more mystery objects than we would care to admit!

Rosie, your sweet and mellow disposition has not changed in the last month.  You are generally happy unless you are tired or hungry, and even then, your fussiness is quite mild.  You are a pleasure to be around!  You have all of us wrapped around your little finger.

Things in the arenas of sleep and eating are going well.  You continue to eat an astonishing amount of food (at least, compared to your brother and sister before you) and to accept new tastes and textures with equanimity.  During a day, usually, you have a big bowl of baby cereal and fruit, two large helpings of whole milk yogurt, Cheerios, a couple of bottles, some kind of baby dinner with protein and veggies, and random other snacks throughout the day, along with Mommy's milk whenever she is home.  You are a growing girl!

Sleep is going very, very well.  We are all doing wonderfully well since you moved out of our room at night!  You are in your own room just down the hall from Mama and Mommy.  You go down about 6:30 or 7 pm and wake up around 5 am to nurse.  You then usually go back to sleep until between 6:30 and 7:30 am, when you get up for the day.  Of course, you make us pay for this by napping hardly at all during the day, and I do mean hardly at all. 

Most days, you spend about half an hour napping, total.  You take a quickie 15-minute nap in the morning and another one in mid-afternoon.  Every so often, you fall asleep in the car and snooze for an hour after I park in the garage, but that's not common.  You are generally wide awake during the day and fast asleep at night.  Luckily, you have such a sweet disposition that you are a pleasure to be around allll day long.  We are ever so grateful that you sleep so well at night.

Rosie, we love you with our whole hearts, all of us.  You are so loved.  We love you so much that our hearts burst with it sometimes.  We look forward to what your next month will bring!

love,
Mama and Mommy