10 month update

This has been quite a difficult month. Jeff was away for two weeks, chaperoning a school trip to Europe, and during that time Amanda got a terrible cold. (She had a cold when she was about 3 months as well, but this one was much worse). It has been almost two weeks now and she is finally showing signs of improvement, after several days on antibiotics to treat chest congestion. Because she lost her appetite while sick, Amanda actually lost weight this month, pushing her down to the 36th percentile for weight! She is starting to lose a lot of her cute baby fat! She has also been very mobile this month, which is contributing to her weight loss as well. We're sure that now her appetite is returning, she will gain the weight back quickly. Amanda has also started feeding herself lots of finger foods this month...she finally seems to have made the hand-mouth connection! She loves Cheerios, rice rusks, small pieces of meat, and cooked veggies. She is really enjoying her newfound mobility...she loves to crawl and cruise around the entire upstairs. Of course this means more work for Mom & Dad! She is still using the modified "Quasimodo crawl", and we think she will just stick with this since she seems much more interested in walking. She hasn't said anything that we would consider a "first word", but she seems to be quite close to saying a few words - especially "kitty", since she loves the cats at Grandma & Grandpa's house! She talks all the time and has lots of inflection in her voice, so it sounds just like she is speaking, even though we can't understand the words yet. Her sleeping has gone off track a bit in the past couple of weeks due to her illness, but she seems to be improving (finally!). We still have only one tooth, although the matching one is right below the surface. She has been teething on this one for at least two weeks now, complete with lots of drooling, chewing, and pain...hopefully all the teeth won't take this long or be this difficult in coming in! This month we also found a great daycare that it looks like we will be sending Amanda to in September (she will be home with Jeff over the summer). It feels good to know that she will be well-taken care of... one less thing to worry about!