Stella's 10th Month

WALKING!!!  That's really all I can say about this last month.  Stella has become quite the mobile little lady, and she is so over crawling.  Nothing is safe in the house any longer because she is already there before you can turn around.  The little devil will even run!  I think she thinks that we're chasing or racing her, but more than half the time we're just trying to beat her to trouble.

To start out this month, we actually had Stella's nine-month checkup with her pediatrician.  This was by far the most fun visit to her doctor because there were no shots!!!  All we had to do was have her weighed, measured, and give our general report on her well being.  Uh, if only all visits could be this fun!  Well, we were sure that our "little" girl was not so little anymore, but we were surprised by the results.  We were both convinced that she was at least twenty pounds, so we were shocked to hear that she only weighs sixteen pounds, four ounces.  I don't know how that came up on the scale, but it put her in the tenth percentile for weight!  This kid puts away food; it's actually quite impressive.  I honestly thought that we were going to be told to scale back on how much she eats.  The doctor said that because she was crawling and practicing walking all the time that she was using all of her calories.  He said it was nothing to worry about, but we could introduce fats and oils into her diet.  Hearing the idea of feeding her things like bacon and adding whipped cream to her fruit made me nauseous.  To say the least, we decided to stick to her healthy diet and let her continue to eat her massive meals.  She may not have come out big in the weight department, but she did in height!  Finally, Steve's height has kicked in with Stells!  She's like a little tree, and her twenty-eight and one-quarter size put her in the seventy-fifth percentile for height.  I can only hope that she continues to get Daddy's tall genes- can you say volleyball star?

This month also brought a chance to take Stella to her second baseball game.  It was another local Ace's game, but this time she was actually able to enjoy it!  Stella was five months old for her last game and slept through most of it, so this was a huge change.  The biggest obstacle with Stells was keeping her seated; she wanted to walk and see things.  This meant that I spent the bulk of the game walking her around the stadium to let her see everything.  She still could care less about the ball game, but she did love all the people and their food.  Case in point- she made friends with a few parents of players for the Ace's sitting behind us.  It started mainly because she was so interested in what they were always yelling about, but then she really moved in when they kept bringing back snacks.  I think she's a ways off from actually watching the game itself, but I'm glad she enjoys the venue!

Stella's summer activities also continued as usual.  We really kept to bringing her to the pool once a week, and each week made her love the pool even more.  She loves to kick and splash around (mainly kick) and she has become really interested in the other kids there.  I finally got the courage to take her underwater this month, and let's just say that it wasn't the most fun experience for either of us.  You're supposed to blow in their face so they hold their breath before you go under, but Stella took a huge gulp!  When we came up, she gave me this horrible look as if saying, "How could you!"  We've only tried this a few more times since, but she still is not entirely in love with the idea.

She does however still love lakes!  We decided to change the location this month and take Stella to Donner instead of Tahoe.  The main reason we wanted to go to Donner is because this lake is full of public docks and is dog friendly.  This meant that we could bring Gwen and Trigger up to Donner a couple of times with Stella.  It turned into more of a family event than anything, but we all enjoyed the warm weather and beautiful views. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, this month was all about walking!  Just before the I had to go back to work for professional development (August 8th to be exact) Stella moved beyond taking a few steps and started to actually walk.  After a morning of putting my classroom together, I came home to make lunch for Stella and myself.  I set her down on the floor to play with Gwen, and I turned around to put Stella's lunch together.  When I looked back to check on her, she was no longer there; Stella was walking through the living room and kitchen after Gwen!  This simple little stroll across the kitchen was the turning point when Stella no longer feared falling down.  She needed help to stand up, which was usually a very patient Gwen, but once she was standing she was off and walking. 

Sadly, it was back to school for Mommy right after that.  I had my professional development for a few days, then we would be back to school.  In this short time, Stella figured out how to stand up by herself.  This meant that she no longer needed to be next to a table, chair, or Gwen to get mobile.  Stella's sole motivation life became to follow Gwen.  God bless Gwen for being a patient dog because Stella is now even more of a nuisance that she is walking.  Gwen can no longer escape her, but boy does she try!  Stella is even working on saying Gwenna; it sounds kind of like "Danna," but she's still pretty impressed with herself. 

Now that Mom and Dad are both back to school (Steve has gone back to college at UNR) we are all adjusting to our schedule away from each other during the day.  I think that Steve and I are both so glad that Stella decided to start walking over the summer!  There's nothing worse than hearing about some new and exciting thing that your baby has done that you missed.  Walking is such a huge milestone in a baby's life, so we were thrilled that we saw Stella do this first hand.






The summer is over and so are ten months.  We have a tall, talkative, mobile, little lady on our hands that is almost a year old!  She's always walking somewhere now, usually caring objects with her as she goes.  We really do have a little clown on our hands, and she makes our nights after school and weekends so worthwhile.  Even my parents are reaping the benefits of having this little girl in their lives, and they have to be the two cutest grandparents you ever did see!  I think we're all feeling pretty lucky to have her in our lives.  Here is Miss Stells "sitting" for her monthly picture:

August 28, 2012