10 months old

Madeline turned 10 months old yesterday, and we had fun taking some pictures. The sun finally came out and we opened the windows, which caught her attention while playing. She loves to hear the birds outside and even says something that sounds like "bird" when she hears them.

Now that Madeline knows where the DVDs live, she went back to investigate some more. This time, she selected just one, closed the door behind her, and crawled around and played with it for a while. I'm thrilled about her choice... of course, it was the first one in the row, but she looks pretty satisfied.

And this is why we've installed the safety gate.

Her bear chair has taken on a second life as a sort of toybox until I find an actual toybox I like. In the meantime, it just floors me to see our little baby standing next to her bear chair instead of snuggled in it.

Fiesta + Baby = Loco

We have this annual tradition called Fiesta, which is a 10-day party with events all over the city. Today was the first day it hasn't rained in a week, and we went to the Fiesta Arts Fair. It's billed as one of the most child-friendly events, but we quickly realized that doesn't include babies in strollers. The grounds were bumpy and full of steps up and down, and it was a madhouse of people - probably just like us - who couldn't wait to get outside and enjoy the fact that it finally wasn't raining. Still, we braved it, and Madeline did so well!

Fiesta decorations off to the left... at least it was a nice day to get outside.

Skype with Dada

While Dave's away (for 2 weeks, ugh) we're lucky to be able to Skype so Madeline can still share storytime in the evening and catch him up on how things are back at home. She says "Dadadadadada" all the time... she definitely misses him. Note we have to keep the computer just out of reach, since she loves to tap the keys and often tries to get through the screen to get to him, and that's very frustrating. I think that's where this set of furrowed brows is coming from... :)

Organizing

Madeline continues to explore her world, and over the last several days has shown how she likes to pull things out and reorganize them. (Ok, actually just pull things out, but that's the first step in reorganizing, so...) Here she is getting some of her books out:

Here she is perusing the DVD collection:

And here she gets a taste of the new Pampers Ultra Dry diapers waiting in her closet to restock the current supply.

The News

This is from 2 weeks ago, but I'm just getting caught up (again!). I love this picture of Madeline catching up on the news with Dave.

Huddled up

Madeline likes to crawl underneath her exersaucer sometimes like this:

only to bump her head on her way out, which she really doesn't seem to like. But then, she gets back under there, so she must like it enough to find it worthwhile. Dave thought she'd like crawling into a small space that wouldn't pose such a head-bumping threat, so he picked up this collapsable tube last week, which she loves. I think she looks a little like a baby 007...

Upside Down

Madeline has been pulling up to a stand lately, but before she got that completely down, she started this tendency of pushing up on her legs and looking through them to laugh at the world upside down. She still does it and it's funny every time.