10 Things I Love About You

Ten months.  Yep, it's true what they say about time flying.  Just last month, people started saying, "Wow, she's almost a year!" and I thought, "Whatevs, she's only nine months."  But now, now that she's ten months . . . well, somehow my mind has flipped the calendar and realized that yes, it's really been almost a year since she joined our family.  Sheesh.  But for now she's just ten months old.  And it's the perfect age for her.  Without further ado, I give you my latest list, 10 Things We Love About Callie.  (And yes, there will be 10 photographs, too - could I really make a post without posting pics?  No way.)

1) We love watching her learn to communicate through sign language.  She can sign "more", "all done", and "milk", though sometimes when she really wants something but can't quite remember how to say it (or maybe just wants to emphasize that she wants it), she just starts waving her arms doing all the signs at once.  We're working on "eat/food" currently.  It's been really fun to see the progression of her learning by first watching us make the sign, then mimicking our actions, and finally actually using it to tell us something.

2) We love watching her wave hi or bye.

3) We love listening to her grunts of concentration as she move herself to where she wants to go, still via the "sidewinder snake maneuver", which is getting more efficient, but still hilarious to watch, combined with some "steamrollin" and "bum pivots".  She has gotten herself up on her hands and knees only briefly, but I think she'll get there eventually.

4) We love seeing her read her books.

5) We love how excited she gets to be outside on a walk or a hike or a stroll.

6) We love the wet, slobbery, open mouthed kisses she plants on our cheeks when we ask for them.

7) We love seeing her curiosity and exploration of her little world - watching her unpack (and scatter everywhere) the contents of the diaper tote, or open, thumb through, and rip out single sheets of paper from our game-scoring notebook.  She's busy, busy, busy.

8) We love hearing her babble away, changing the tone of her voice and repeating sounds she hears from us. She'll fake cough if she hears us cough (and just last night it sounded very much like she mimicked a burp).  She'll repeat a "da-da-da" or "ma-ma-ma" or "la-la-la" after we say it.  She has a high squeaky voice that she uses specifically to talk to her stuffed animal friends, especially Minnie Mouse.  Sometimes she'll sing along when we are singing or listening to music.  And sometimes she'll sing just because.  That's my favorite.

9) We love playing peek-a-boo as a family, especially when Dad gets home from work.  And it's fun to watch her initiate a game of peek-a-boo by holding something up over her head.  The best part of that is when it's not something that actually covers her face, yet she's convinced that she's hiding anyway.

10) We love her bath-time antics: splashing and "swimming" and sitting back up, trying to catch the toys as they float by, grabbing the washcloth from our hands, and splashing some more for good measure.

Yeah, we love our little girl!




Watch Callie grow: 9 months | 8 months | 7 months | 6 months | 5 months | 4 months | 3 months | 2 months | birth