Sooooooo BIG!

On the eve of Olivia's 10 month birthday I must face the fact that things are changing...and changing fast! She is no longer that quiet little baby that I held in my arms only a few short months ago. The days of sitting still on her blanket and playing with her toys are slowing diminishing. She is becoming an independent baby that is ready to move and explore her surroundings! And boy is she moving! One of her favorites things to do is use her Daddy as her own personal jungle gym!

In the past few weeks Olivia has begun to pull herself up with little or no assistance. She mainly pulls herself up on other people, as opposed to furniture, but she has gotten quite good at it. She is also able to get herself into a seated position from her belly or her back. This seems to have given her new found freedom! So now, instead of just laying in her crib when I put her down for a nap she will sit up and play with her stuffed animals for awhile before deciding that she is ready for her snooze. I figured this out one day last week when I poked my head into her nursery to see if she had fallen asleep...and there she was sitting up having a conversation with one of her many stuffed animals. I watched her from a distance for awhile and after checking back a few times I noticed that she simply leaned forward, rested her head on her stuffed bear and fell asleep! It didn't seem like the most comfortable of positions but she obviously didn't mind.

And with the discovery of being able to pull herself up she has figured out how to stand up in her crib! This worries me a little as I am terrified that she will just topple out. Todd and I already lowered it once but I think we may need to do it again. This realization came after witnessing just what Olivia is now able to do in her crib. The other morning I went in to get her and I found her with a terrible case of bed head...

I was then able to capture her new talents in this series of pictures...

Rise & Shine

I'm Ready to Start the Day...Get Me Out of Here!

I Said...Get Me Out of Here!

And 1-2-3...just like that Olivia has become a big girl. She is able to get what she wants more easily now that she is able to accomplish more things on her own. There are still quite a few things that she cannot do, and she tends to get quite frustrated when she's stuck. She is not a huge fan of crawling...it is more like scooting. She prefers to army crawl than get on all fours and move. But she is able to get to where she wants to go...she just has her own way of doing it. In time she will figure out her next developmental step and tackle it head on...just like she did with crawling, and standing up. I'm guessing that walking is not far behind!

Olivia has also started to show a great interest in reading. She loves books...all kinds of books. She is mostly interested in interactive books. Plain old board books tend to bore her. But if she finds a book with things she can touch and pull she is in heaven. Recently she has developed a fascination with a book at her Nana's house called "Tails". This is a great book that has tails of all different animals that she can feel and pull. It is very colorful and quite clever. Every time Olivia visits her Nana she is asked..."Do you want to read the Tails book?" She responds by shrieking in delight and looking or reaching for the place that Nana keeps the book. It amazes me how quickly she has caught on to this book and knows exactly where it is kept. Once they start to read the book Olivia anticipates what is on each page. There is even a page with the stinky tail of a skunk. When they reach this page she leans forward to smell the page and makes a funny sound with her nose to show us that the tail is stinky! What a smarty pants! Here is a video clip of Nana and Livie reading their favorite book together...

And when they are finished with the book Nana tries to put it away but Olivia protests by crying and whining until Nana agrees to read it again...and again...and again. We finally have to break this trend after about the sixth reading. This tends to be quite difficult, but she gets over it after we move onto the next activity. I am thrilled with her interest in books. I love that I can just sit her down with a book and she is happy. She studies each book and flips through the pages many times. I hope that she holds on to that love for books and grows up to become someone who loves to read.

In two short months we will be celebrating Olivia's first Birthday! Her ninth month was full of milestones. It will be interesting to see how much more she will change before reaching one. Who knows...by then I could be talking about how I do nothing but chase this child around the house. But for now I will enjoy the final moments of Olivia's restricted mobility, because with the way things have been going lately I won't be able to say that for much longer! Go Livie Go!

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3 - Mission Accomplished!