Ten Months Old

This is the picture we used to entire Lena into the Gerber baby photo contest.

Lena turned ten months old (double digits!) on September 3rd!  We were in Hawaii on a family vacation during this milestone and learned that our Little Lena is a beach baby!  She really enjoys playing in the sand and only occasionally licks her sandy fingers.  Ewww!  One of the biggest events during Lena's 10th month was that she got her two front teeth!  It was our worst teething episode yet and poor Lena was pretty uncomfortable.  The worst of it happened during our second week in Hawaii.  Luckily I had brought along all of my teething remedies and tried to distract her with the koi ponds (which she LOVED) and the fun beach activities.  Lena continues to love people and boy oh boy do people love Lena.  She is our little social butterfly; waving to people everywhere, flashing her sweet smile, and allowing family and friends to hold her.  It will be interesting to see how God uses this part of her personality.  It is definitely one way that she and I are different!

Lena loves to be outside!

During her tenth month poor Lena suffered from a very bad mommy and daddy mistake.  One night as I was putting Lena to bed in her darkened room.  I rocked her to sleep as she took her bedtime bottle.  As she drank the last drop of formula I reached to set the bottle down only to find the full bottle of formula that I had just made!  I had accidentally just fed Lena and entire bottle of formula that Dan had partially fed her early that morning.  It was the same color and bottle shape as the bottle of my fresh formula and I had mixed them up in the dark.  I was so nervous that I had just poisoned my precious daughter!  She was fast asleep so I put her down while I Googled "what to do if I fed my baby old formula".  Ha ha!  I found out quickly that I was not the only mom to do this.  About four hours after she finished the bottle Lena woke up with a stomach ache.  She was moaning and wouldn't go back to sleep.  We ended up giving her some Colic Calm and a fresh bottle to flush her system and Dan slept with her the rest of the night to make sure she was okay.  Poor girl!

Some pretty loud yelling can come out of that little mouth!

 Lena has really been on the move!  In her tenth month she has learned to stand by herself and likes to clap and dance.  It won't be too much longer before she figures out how to walk!  She has also become more adventurous and skilled in her eating.  She can now drink out of a sippy cup and loves to eat puffs, crackers, yogurt melts, and other soft finger foods.  Mangoes and sweet potatoes are still her favorite foods.  Dan also taught her to hold her own bottle so she can feed herself which is an awesome time saver for me! 
Lena continues to grow but she is still generally on the small side.  She hit 17 pounds this month and I have finally put away most of the 6 month clothing (except the pants as she is smaller on the bottom).  She only wears 6-9 month clothing now but she is still in size two diapers and wears size two in shoes (although we never put them on her).  She still takes two good naps everyday.  I thought she was moving to one nap but she still really needs and enjoys two naps, especially the morning nap.

Exploring!  She probably saw one of our cats...

 Next to her new teeth the biggest change in Lena this month has been her temper!  She knows now how to make her will known.  I am trying my best to teach her at this very early age more appropriate ways to express her will.  I can see now why some people teach their kids sign language.  After all what parent wouldn't prefer a hand signal to a meltdown?  My least favorite is when she arches her back and cries when I am trying to change her diaper and she doesn't want me to.  Lena might be little but she is super strong! Mostly I have found that her temper comes when she is tired so I try my best to keep her on a good nap schedule.  Then everyone is more happy!

We love the Peanut!!!