10 months old!

Dear sweet little bunny shoo-shoo,
I started writing you a letter a little bit after your 9 month birthday but never finished because we moved to Berlin, Germany and things have been a little hectic, but we made it.


For the past two months the best description of you is BUSY. I imagine that will stay the best adjective for you for a while! Just when I really needed to have a childproofed house I didn't although we are doing better now. Last month you really mastered pulling up on things and then getting back down. Your world really grew at that point and you have not forgotten that when you stand up there will probably be something on that table, or chair, or whatever, that is fun to play with. It was fun to watch you learn to pull up and then get back down. The getting down was a challenge but you finally realized that hey, knees bend! The first several times you would just lean back and let go more and more until you just sort of plopped down on the floor.

There were a few weeks there where you really didn't say too much and I think that is because you were working so hard on getting faster in crawling and really mastering pulling up. You were back to your vocal self pretty quickly though. You really like making the "b" sound and a sort-of hacking, grunting noise that really annoys your dad. He has asked me twice now what I think about this noise and I keep saying I think that you are experimenting with sounds. Or maybe you get a response from that sound. You squeal when you see yourself in the mirror or a picture of a baby and often when you see one of the dogs. You spend a lot of time talking to the dogs. Or sitting in front of the mirror talking to yourself. Or just sitting on the floor with a toy and talking to it. I suppose that another description for you could be talkative.

There are lots of things I have meant to get on video but haven't for different reasons. You love to watch us click our tongues and then you try to imitate by opening and closing your mouth and then that moves into BABABABA. I haven't been able to catch you squealing at yourself in the mirror and it's a challenge now to catch you just talking to toys because if you see the camera then you need to get it! You grabbed the camera strap, which was carelessly hanging off of the desk, and pulled it down once. Luckily the camera didn't land on your head but you were surprised and got a little upset. Almost everything you are going for is dangerous.....

You started being afraid of heights. I noticed this one day as I was playing up in the air games with you and your face had a look of fear I had not seen before! Oh man, you better get used to life in the air, have you met your dad??

You are eating 3 meals a day and you seem to enjoy meal time. You let us feed you but like it better if you can feed yourself. You will eat anything so far....for a while there you wouldn't do butternut squash but I bet you'd eat that now. I don't even know that you have favorites...maybe yogurt and fruit....but you seems to love the veggies too. You are messy but this is no surprise and you have figured out that you can feed the dogs....I thought that would come a little later.....meals are much more entertaining now!

You really enjoy playing chase games and hide and seek. You love to be tickled and bounced on the bed. These things will get you really laughing. You love to sing "the itsybitsy spider." You love Calvin and Jahnimous but only Calvin returns the love. You love to find something on the floor, a sock, paper, rag, dog toy and carry it around. You will crawl a little, sit up, shake the item, put it in your mouth, tell it a story and then crawl a little more and repeat the process. You may carry this item around for 20 minutes. Your are not terribly picky on what the item is. You like bath time and playing with bath toys. You like getting dried off and massage time (until we turn you over to do your back and then you want to crawl to anything you can see on the bed). You love to go for strolls and backpack or ergo rides and you love to be outside. You LOVE to suck your two left fingers closest to your thumb and rub your neck with your right hand. It's the comfort position.

You don't love to get cleaned off after meals or have your nose wiped or suctioned ever. You don't like to get too many kisses when you cleary have better things to do. You don't like for me to change your diaper first thing in the am, but if your dad does it it's ok.

You tend not to be a good napper, so we do a lot of strolling to get you to nap, although the reason this is getting written is because you are currently taking a nap in your bed. You go to sleep pretty well at night, with a 5-10 minute back rub. You get up a bit earlier here in Berlin, more like 6:30 instead of 7:30 without as much play in your crib but I think that will come back once we are really settled.

You continue to be a really happy kid. I say kid now because you tend to have crusty food in you hair or on your face now and if you have a cold you tend to have kid snot coming out of your nose! You are usually covered in dog hair.....I understand why my friend Lisa videos her Roomba more than her kid, I never thought I'd want one of those but it sounds great right now! Dirty or not I still love you to pieces. You are so sweet and loving and funny. You give great, slobbery kisses and do this thing where you in a very sweet way put your forehead to mine and it's just love!
There are no photos here because we have been having A LOT of technical difficulties since arriving in Berlin but that will get better....patience.

I love you so much!
Love,
Mama