We're nearing the 10 month mark . . .

. . . so I figured that it's time for another longer post. But first, a photo:

From October 30

Maia was in East Lansing today, and she got this wicked awesome sweatshirt (thanks to Nana and Papa Hecker)! Here she is, doing the wave all by herself on our front lawn. One of the cool things about "Michigan rivalry week" for Maia is that when you have a Mom from one school and a Dad from the other, you're happy no matter who wins the game. :)

There's lots going on in general Maia News these days. Let's see . . . well, her fourth tooth just came through her gums today, which is very cool indeed. She's now showing her two front teeth both on the bottom and on the top. The arrival of teeth is one of those weird milestones that has an absolutely huge range of "normal." For example, I know one 12-month old with thirteen teeth, and another with two. Both of those stats are just fine, and neither is a cause for celebration or concern. I think that's quite interesting. In general, baby milestones operate on a tighter range of "normal" than that . . . except for the age at which babies start walking. That's another huge one, all the way from seven months to sixteen (or more!).

Maia is now eating regular table food with us on most nights. She just eats a ground-up or broken-up version of whatever we're eating, sometimes with the spice level reduced a bit (especially if we're eating Indian or Thai). The list of "off-limit" foods is now MUCH shorter than the list of foods that are just fine; basically, the only no-nos are nuts, strawberries, honey, and milk. That sure does make life easy! (And, for some reason, tabbouleh doesn't sit well with her, either. Too acidic?) Maia still nurses about five times in a 24-hour period, and I imagine that that number will decrease slowly over time, until . . . who knows? I think she'll probably still be nursing once or twice a day at this time next year.

Maia is really big on making raspberries these days. She sticks her tongue out and lets the spit fly!

Brian and I have adjusted to our new sleep schedule, which is somewhat of a return to the pattern of three-month-old Maia. She generally wakes once in the middle of the night now, usually around 2:00 or 3:00 AM. It's a quick wake-up: we hear her babbling over the baby monitor, and she's standing up in her crib, looking at the door when one of us (generally Brian) walks into the room. She then has a quick nurse (usually about 10 minutes), and then is back into bed and usually back to sleep with no fuss. Honestly, I could keep up this pattern for years; it's really not difficult, and I enjoy the middle of the night nursing sessions and will miss them when they're gone for good. Brian and I were talking about this a few nights ago, and we realized that Maia's sleep challenges during her eighth month of life were quite a readjustment period for us after months of 10, 11, 11.5 hour stretches of continuous sleep. It was a bit of a wake-up call (pun intended!), a return to the more-likely reality of being a parent. We realized that this is part of the deal: when you become a parent, you accept that disturbed sleep is part of the bargain, probably for years.

We've started to call Maia "puppy," because she's doing several puppy-like things. She crawls around with things in her mouth, she barks, and she even begs for food! Brian was sitting on the floor, eating a piece of very yummy pumpkin bread that he'd made, and Maia crawled up to him, put her hands on his leg, and then on his arm, and proceeded to reach for the bread. She stayed there for several minutes, just waiting patiently for him to hand her little pieces of what he was eating.

I think that that's enough for now. Happy Halloween, everyone!