Meera Grace 10 Months Old

Meera Grace, 3/28/09, 8:04 AM

Well, this one is bitter sweet for me. In all honesty, mostly bitter (although she is absolutely all sweet). I'm just sad that the first year is disappearing so quickly. How can my newborn tiny infant suddenly be 10 months old? 10 months? A year ago I was pregnant and we were setting up the crib. How can we now be watching our girl getting ready to walk? As far as I'm concerned, this is getting way too close to the 1-year mark. Every day I wish I could freeze time. I don't remember feeling this way about Kyle and Owen. It wasn't that I wished away the time -- not at all -- but with them I have always been so incredibly curious what they'll grow up to be, and with them caregiving was always such incredibly hard work (simply because they were twins; and rambunctious "all Boy" twins at that). Of course I'm curious what will become of Meera Grace (she's an interesting case in and of herself), and of course taking care of her is hard work (caring for any baby is), but I just wish I could keep her my baby-baby-baby forever. 10 months seems like a big jump from 9 months. And this past month has seen such fast-paced development for our little one. It is all just moving way too fast and no matter how hard we try to slow it down, time slips away. And then it is gone forever. Which is why I am bitter. But then I look at her and the bitterness melts away immediately. Because seriously, you cannot be in the presence of this baby and feel anything but warm-fuzzies. At least I can't. Meera had a Well Baby doctor's visit on Thursday. She weighs 23 pounds and is 29.5 inches tall. That's the 90th percentile for weight and 95th for height. Like Braydon said, she seems to have the Swedish genes going strong and my Popop would be proud. And Meera would love Popop too, since she seems to love just about everyone. She goes willingly to strangers to be held, she smiles and waves at people she sees, and she loves to "talk" and interact with any of the kids at Kyle and Owen's school each day at pick-up. This month, however, for the first time, Meera showed her first signs of stranger anxiety. Three times she cried when random friends (different people/different times, but all male) tried to talk to her. Since she rarely cries (rarely), it was striking (yet right on track for her age and development). She's also figured out that she can get just about anything she wants from her big brothers, who will do just about anything they can to please her if she even wimpers or whines the tiniest, tiniest bit. Meera's favorite new trick is banging two object together. She's been doing it for the past 3 weeks or so, and getting a big kick out of it. That -- and standing -- are by far her favorite things to do. All she wants to do is stand. She shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in crawling (or even rolling over-- she still doesn't roll over!), despite our best efforts to encourage her interest in it, but she wants to stand up all the time. Just in the past week she has started to be able to not only stand holding on to something, but to 'walk' along it as well (coffee table, etc.). She still sleeps like a DREAM BABY. And we're still astounded, daily, that somehow we lucked out and got a DREAM BABY. How could we be so lucky??? This past month Meera has started to show some of her willfulness. We've always known, from the start, that it was there, but before it was very subtle and now it is coming out more often overtly -- especially around eating. She wants to eat what we are eating. Always. Period. She will eat baby food if she is hungry enough, but would much prefer whatever is on our plates. And if she isn't hungry enough she'll just go on a food strike, pursing her lips to keep her mouth shut tight, until we give in and give her something she can manage from our plates... which is more and more often. My guess is that by the end of this month she'll basically be eating all normal food and the baby food jars will be more-or-less obsolete. Her favorite food is now macaroni and cheese (oh no! now we have 3 of them!!!), and Kyle and Owen take great pride in knowing that their sister loves "The Bunny" (i.e., Annie's shells and cheddar) as much as they do. She also loves pasta of any kind, mashed potatoes, any/all bread, and cheese. And she's loving trying to drink out of a sippy cup (and getting pretty good at it too). Meera's relationship with Margie (the original, the best, Super Nanny) is very sweet and adorable. They hang out together like old friends. Meera talks and Margie listens. Margie talks and Meera listens (Spanish? no problem!). Margie cleans, Meera plays. Meera has her bottle, Margie has her tea. They have a whole routine going. They are best buds and it is so cute to see. Little Miss is quite the verbal little thing. Margie comments on it regularly to me -- telling me that she is way beyond her age where all things talking are concerned (I have no reference because K & O were just being exposed to English for the first time when they were Meera's age, so their speech development was not typical whatsoever). Meera says "hi"; "bye"; "hi kitty!", "all done!"; "bottle"; "baby"; "book"; "bunny" (her lovey); "no"; and... we think... maybe "Mama" too. She probably says other words too, these are just the ones that are immediately coming to my mind. Of course only we (and Margie) can make these things out... but still... she's talking up a storm. And babbling all day long. This month we got one of the boys' old high chairs down from the attic and put it in the kitchen. Meera likes being right in the center of everything, so this is working out well for her! She sits there while we get breakfast ready and cook dinner and lots of other times in-between when we're all gathered in the kitchen. She likes outings in the stroller, but prefers the backpack (loves the backpack). And she continues to adore (like, ridiculously, over-the-top adore) her wild and crazy brothers... who are always good for a good laugh... and who tickle her and play peek-a-boo with her and read books to her and run circles around her entertaining her with their antics. And she is very entertained. Laughing, smiling ear-to-ear, clapping... she loves every minute of every show (and the show just goes on and on and on). We have all these Baby Einstein videos from when K & O were babies, but Meera has built in entertainment so we have yet to even pull one off the shelf. She enjoys watching them do anything they are doing (puppet shows!? yay! riding the train!? yay! you name it, and if K & O do it, well, then, she loves it). Lately she is getting in on the action more and more as a semi-reciprocal sibling relationship begins to grow. They try to include Meera in some things now-- and if she can fit into the action while she's in her walker (i.e., relatively autonomous and safely stuck in something they can't pull her out of), then we watch and laugh as the three of them "play" together. I can only imagine the future. But I do know one thing about it: for as long as the five of us are all together in this world it is sure to be interesting. You can say whatever you want about our life, but there is truly no denying that there is never a dull moment. I cannot wait to see what Meera becomes. I am incredibly excited about what she is becoming. And so, despite the bitter... there is the sweet.