The Tough Times Make You Stronger: Whitney is Ten Months Old!

Height: 26.5 inches
Weight: 23 lbs
Sizes: diapers - 3 (4 at night), shoes- 4, clothes- some 12 months, mostly 18 months
Major Milestones this month: She is RUNNING!!

Our Daily Schedule:
We have a great routine going, and I am loving it!
7:45am W wakes up
8am 6oz bottle and we "work" on letters (either reading an alphabet book, looking at flashcards, watching her letters dvd, etc.
9am breakfast time
10am-12pm nap if we are home.
12pm- 6oz bottle
1pm- lunch
2pm-4pm nap if we are home.
4pm- 6oz bottle
6pm- dinner time, usually with us at the table if Daddy is home in time
7pm- bath time, brush teeth (she loooves this part of the day!)
7:30pm-books, bottle, DVD with mommy and daddy
8pm- bedtime. She lays down awake, snuggling her Minnie and/or bear blanket, and is out cold after a few tosses and turns.
She still gets up once a night, but no longer wants a bottle. She just likes a minute or two to snuggle, then goes right back to sleep :)

Activity:
Whitney rarely crawls anymore. She is looking more and more like our big girl, walking and RUNNING every where! She is SUPER fast, too! She was walking in Walmart today and had a mind of her own...she wanted to go one way while Eric and I were headed the other way. She TOOK OFF and did not want me to catch her! She walks and waves "Hi" to everyone she passes. SOOO cute! Of course we think she's super cool already, but I must admit, I am regularly amazed by how smart Whitney is! I can tell her "go get your Minnie", and she will pick through a pile of toys to find Minnie, then bring her back to me. She hugs her babies and pats their backs, which just melts my heart :) She likes to climb EVERYTHING, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. We were at our friends' house on Friday night, and before we knew it, Whitney was up 3 stairs on her own! She also mastered the climbing wall at the park (with little help from her Daddy). She is unstoppable and fearless...a dangerous combination...but SO MUCH FUN!

Sleeping/Napping:
Whitney is still our excellent napper. If she gets 2 hours in the morning, then she just needs a quick power nap later in the day if we have plans to be out of the house. And if she only gets a power nap in the morning, then she needs those 2 hours of solid naptime in the afternoon. But overall, she is really a great sleeper at home. She had her first sleepover at her Mac and Gramps' house this month, and I dont know who had more fun! She wasnt really ready to come home when we went to pick her up the next morning! I continue to hear friendly suggestions and words of advice from mothers everywhere, asking "have you tried this..." and "why dont you try..." etc when I say that Whitney is still waking once each night. I usually just smile and say "Yep, we've tried it" or I'll tel lthem the truth...it DOESNT BOTHER ME! In fact, it is among my favorite parts of the day (night) :) She wakes up, gets some nice cozy cuddles from mommy, and then lays right back down to snuggle her bear blanket and Minnie. Its not bad! :) I kept hearing "she'll sleep through the night when she starts solids....when she crawls......when she walks....etc"...I am pretty sure she'll sleep through the night when she goes to college...and even then, she might just sleep through the afternoon and be up all night still :)

Eating:
Aside from peas, Whitney will eat just about anything we give her. Oranges, bananas, cereal bars, cheerios, pineapple, ham, turkey, chicken, rice, any baby food, yogurt, cheese, pasta, broccoli, green beans, carrots, mashed potatoes ... you name it. She still gets her formula in a bottle, but she drinks a whole sippy cup of water every day. Im so glad she likes water :) Ive tried a splash of pear juice occasionally, but she throws it on the floor :)

Personality:
Of course, we think Whitney is a genius and just the cutest baby in the whole wide world. :) She continues to amaze us everyday. She learned how to put the balls in her dinosaur toy to make the music play. She dances whenever music comes on TV. And she already shows preferences for certain toys. Bear blanket is a faithful companion, but Whitney also loves her mini-Minnie from one of our recent trips to EPCOT. Whitney understands so much and walks around the house babbling and "talking" allllll day. She seems to repeat several sounds ("key", "tag", "bay", and "min") in reference to specific items. She knows Mama and Dada and Bailey (he's "Bay!") and she has started repeating "ball". Whitney still loves to talk to herself in the mirror, and laughs all day. She is truly the happiest, most laid back baby we know. She is only afraid of little dogs. Big dogs = cool. Little dogs = scary, fear-inducing creatures. We're working on it :) Once she sees Mommy or Daddy pet the little dogs, she warms up a little, but she isnt really a fan.
In order to zap my own boredom and because it really cant hurt, I started focusing on different topics each hour she is awake. For example, 8am hour we read and talk a lot about letters and their names and sounds. I have a ton of ABC books and she has several puzzles and ABC musical toys, so we just hang out with letters for that hour. Then, at 9am I talk about numbers. We count (ok, so *I* count and she laughs at me), stack blocks and count them, read books about numbers, and do "No More Monkeys" during breakfast. She naps 10-12, but at noon we do colors with books and other toys. 1pm we do shapes. 2-4pm she naps but when she wakes up we look in the mirror and point to eyes, ears, nose, etc. Whitney can successfully locate our noses, eyes, mouths, and teeth :) Im not psycho about "lessons" and its always fun and entertaining, never strict or too structured, but we had several weeks with COLD weather that trapped us indoors, so I was determined to keep us both entertained, and it turns out, we both love it :)

Pictures:
Proof of her cuteness :)
Whitney, 4 days old: