Dear Eleanor… Ten Months

Dear Eleanor,

Whoosh! Ten months, just like that. All of a sudden you have grown up a lot in just the past two months, baby girl. You are doing a lot more talking – you’ve gone from saying ‘ba-ba-ba’ all the time to ‘dada’. I’m not sure if it’s directed at Daddy, sometimes it seems very deliberate, like in your highchair having dinner when Daddy usually comes home, you gesture wildly at the door and saying ‘dadadada!’ When you are almost 10 months old I was putting you in your carseat, clicking you in, you were playing with my hair, trying to pull it as usual, then you tapped my face with your pudgy little hand and said ‘mumum’. I was shocked to say the least! Then my heart nearly exploded. I asked you to say it again but you just did your funny little chortle of a giggle. Now you say it often, but again we’re not sure how directed it is at me. Often it will be when I go to get you out of your cot from a sleep, so perhaps?

At 9 months old you finally mastered rolling off your tummy – about time Blossom! You still don’t like being on your tummy, but now mummy knows that you can get off it’s so much easier being able to leave you and not worry you’ll be trapped by the ‘tummy of doom!’ Then not long after, you managed you get from your tummy to sitting – a serious milestone as this makes you quite mobile as you roll and pivot and manouvre yourself around. You push up from your tummy, getting into your favourite sitting position and promptly clap hands! Oh the clapping hands – boy do you love to clap hands! Grandi has been clapping your hands together for months trying to teach you, Mummy scoffs and says Eleanor can’t clap hands, she’s just a little baby! Then one night sitting in your highchair I say to you “Eleanor, can you clap hands?” and just like that, you give me a silly look and smack your two pudgy hands together. Silly Mummy! Once you start clapping you can’t stop, clap clap clap, clap for this, clap for that. You clap for everything! You clap when Mummy stacks up your favourite nesting cups – well done Mummy! You clap when you’re waiting for your dinner, you clap when you see Tessa, you clap when getting your nappy changed. So. Much. Clapping.

But back to the crawling…or trying to. You start to put weight on your knees, and often will go on all fours, but still for weeks and weeks you couldn’t figure out what to do with those darn legs of yours! You would go backwards a lot, as you pushed yourself up to sitting. Mostly, you sit and clap! Clap clap clap. Yes, well done Eleanor. Then, on Sunday, five days after you were 10 months old, you started to crawl! You had done about three steps before, but never quite ‘got’ it. Now, you will crawl across the lounge room to get to Tessa (or Mummy’s laptop charger! Your favourite!) You still aren’t overly confidant, you still can’t quite figure it out sometimes, Mummy calls you to crawl over to her and you still just sit and look confused, you haven’t quite understood yet that you can get places! And you get frustrated! You go backwards still a bit, getting further away from where you wanted to go. Daddy has to really hurry up with the guard for the fire, because you make a beeline for it at every opportunity! There’s so much exploring for you to do, baby girl, as you make your way around our little farmhouse. You’re keeping Mummy very busy as you discover your surroundings, and bump your head a lot on things too! Mummy has started having to be cross, saying “No, Eleanor! No!” a lot to you. Sometimes it seems you can’t touch anything but it’s just that you love to go straight for the things Mummy will say “No, Eleanor! No!” about (the TV cabinet with the enticing DVD player, the fire hearth “Hot, Eleanor! Hot!” or powerpoints, cables and Tessa’s bed).

Grandi has also taught you to wave! You ‘got’ the waving just like you got the clapping, all of a sudden it seems all you do is wave! You do a funny double handed wave, palms up to the sky, Mummy calls it your ‘karate chop’! Waving has definitely taken over from clapping. Now you wave for everything – everything deserves a wave (or twenty)!

We started swimming lessons when you were 9 months old. Mummy takes you on a Thursday morning and your friend Connor from our mum’s group goes too. On your first lesson Grandi comes and brings Charlotte, Ava and Violet too. Your first lesson you’re not quite so sure, you don’t get upset, but as usual you just watch…observe…sit back…then at your second lesson you splish-splash and blow bubbles (sort of) like the other babies. Getting changed afterwards when we’re both all wet is quite the task, Mummy is going to have to get better at it!

You have still been sleeping like a champion – going to bed at 7pm each night and we often won’t hear a peep out of you until 8am, a few times you’ve slept in until 9.30!!! You are, as always, our placid little Blossom. Sometimes I would hear you waking at 7am but you would drift off back to sleep obviously. During the day you have a morning sleep and an afternoon sleep, always one at least 2 hours.

When you are just over 8 months old though you get a mild cold. Nothing serious, a sniffly nose, congested sinuses, you get over it…but then you get a cough. And you cough. And cough. And cough. Your poor little bark makes Mummy and Daddy so sad at night as you cough and cough in your cot. You never complain or cry about it though. You just cough. The doctor diagnoses mild bronchitis and you go on a round of antibiotics and get a Ventolin puffer. Your cough gets better! Then…worse. Worse than ever before. At the same time it seems you are cutting your two front top teeth. You cry out at night in that cry like I’ve never really heard you do before = pain. For the first time since you were a tiny little baby, you spend an evening out on the couch with Mummy, snuggled in your sleeping bag with Carrots. You usually settle back to sleep with your dummy and Carrots, now you cry with a dummy in and Carrots in your arms too. Back to the doctor…to diagnose tonsillitis. Your poor tonsils are so inflamed, and you cry when you cough. Now we’re on more antibiotics, more snuggles, and for the first time in months you wake in the night and can’t be resettled, you come into Mummy and Daddy’s bed and still cry with your dummy, Carrots, Mummy and Daddy, and your darn sore tonsils.

You are still very placid, very observant, even when you’re sick you don’t get upset easily. You are not a very determined child, Grandi says you’re just like Mummy. You’re in no rush to do things, in fact Mummy’s quite surprised you are crawling already at 10 months. Before you could crawl you would look at a toy and want to get to it, but then just find something else nearby to amuse yourself. Not much determination at all! That’s ok Blossom, we love you just the way you are – our quiet, measured little girl, with the barking cough and sore tonsils.

Keep blooming Blossom,
Mama