Miriam: 10 months

Miriam turned 10 months old yesterday! She is growing by leaps and bounds (personality-wise...not sure she's growing that much physically these days) and our love for her grows with her. It's astounding to remember that this time last year I was super pregnant with her but we hadn't met her yet. We existed before we met her? What is this nonsense?!

So that I don't forget them (I will!!) here are some things about Miriam at 10 months:

Sleeping patterns: Wakes up around 7:15, naps 2-3 times (usually every 2-3 hours) and goes to bed around 8:30. Sometimes wakes up once around 9:30 and hangs out with us for another hour, but I'd say most days she's down by 8:30 and down for the count for the night.

Eating patterns:  Eating changed a lot this month! Miriam pretty swiftly weaned herself from breastfeeding in the early weeks of the month so we switched over to formula (seriously, she would nurse for like 30 seconds before jumping off my lap to go explore something, and the sporadic eating meant that when I tried to keep up my milk supply by pumping at work I would only get 2 ounces of milk after 20 minutes...). I still get to breastfeed her first thing in the morning when she's too sleepy to want to run off and play, so that's nice, at least. Food-wise, she still eats copious amounts of whatever we're eating (and with great enthusiasm!) and if she sees us eating anything she gets very upset if we don't share. Her sense of injustice is still going strong!

Miriam making her "You have something I want and you're not giving it to me" face:

And Nikolai doing a pretty good imitation of it:

New discoveries she made: She doesn't like having her hair clipped up, but it's so long that without one it hangs in her face and gets food in it. She also discovered that if she's crawling around and one of us bigger people comes near her, she can crawl away and squeal and thereby initiate a game of chase! Weeks of having a runny nose taught her that she doesn't like having her nose wiped, and her burgeoning exploration skills taught her that A) she can get into things we don't want her to have and B) if she turns around in a circle away from us she can briefly keep us from taking it from her (as well as make us laugh!).

Accomplishments: Miriam discovered that UP was a thing this month (it was sort of incredible how quickly it happened, like something switched in her little brain!) and soon after learned to climb on the couch (with the cushions off), and once made it 6 steps up the stairs before we realized she was too quiet and went to find her! (yeah, that baby gate stays up most of the time now...)  She's been cruising along furniture for a month or two now but she just recently started getting more into holding our hands and walking. She's got a strong enough core to walk, I think, but she's got some balance and confidence issues to overcome first. She has also begun cutting her very first tooth!

Places she went: Everywhere we went! The zoo, the library, on bike rides (we've had a mild December for the most part) and all sorts of other places.

Special memories: Anytime Nikolai goes upstairs or downstairs without her, Miriam goes to the stairs and shouts across the baby gate for him. Sometimes she relents and goes to play by herself, but often she gets increasingly agitated, upset to be cut off from her favorite other small person. She likes joining in with almost anything he's playing, especially wrestling with Dad! Jesse and Nikolai love wrestling, and when she sees them going at it Miriam squeals excitedly and crawls over to climb all over the two of them. I need to capture it on video one of these days because it is delightful!!!

We love our incredible Miriam and are so glad she's part of our family!