Our baby girl is 10 months old today! Ellen just continues to amaze us and make us laugh. Although she isn't crawling... I'd be surprized if she ever does... she is becoming much more confident with turning around in a circle on her bottom and reaching things almost out of her reach. Her language skills and understanding amazes us most of all. We ask her what a cow, monkey, or pig says, and she'll make the sound for each animal... not exactly how you'd expect, but in her own way... but she understands what we ask. In the past week, she has added "la" sounds to her babbling vocabulary. Just this morning I asked her at breakfast whether she wanted any more food and she signed that she was finished, without me asking her whether she was finished. At meals, we have discovered that she will eat much more when I load a spoon with food for herfor her to feed herself than when she just picks up food from her highchair tray. In fact, this morning she ate a bowl of Shreddies (similar to wheat Chex) for breakfast rather than picking up soggy pieces from her tray.
Pointing has become a new trick; she has learned that we can communicate through one little index finger... actually, it's quite helpful! She has also become very interested in children (more than babies) and animals. For instance, when we walk down the baby aisle or past the pet food aisle, she'll point and giggle at the babies on the diaper packages and at the animals on the pet food packages. It's very cute and entertaining. Also she loves looking at the babies in my baby magazines. She'll just sit there and thumb through the magazine for ages.
Ellen still isn't sleeping through the night without waking to feed, but we're working on it. The past week and a half we've been using the "Millpond" method of helping her to sleep through the night, which is basically reducing the time she feeds during the night by 30 seconds each night. I'm still not certain whether or not it'll work, but we're giving it our best efforts. We may just have to do the "gradual withdrawl" method, which may mean a few sleepless nights, but we must get her to fall back asleep without having to rely on "mommy".
I also returned to work tonight. I will be working again at Sainsbury's 12 hours a week indefinitely - Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. It's not ideal, but it's what needs to be done.
