You are 10 months old, you are closer to a toddler then a newborn now. You have been out in the world longer then I was pregnant with you. When you were born you were little and tiny, you snuggled up and loved watching everything.

You learned to smile and roll and stick out your tongue.

You started sitting

and laughing, and moving

And moving

And pulling up

And telling people hi, and eating table food

And you starting sliding and climb up stairs

And you visited Disney World and met lots of characters and rode lots of rids and had fun with everyone.

You started clapping, pointing, waving good bye and saying bye bye. You celebrated Thanksgiving in Georgia, and played in the leafs.

You started standing without support

And you got to play in the snow and go sledding with your big brother.

You celebrated the holidays with everyone and got to open far to many gifts!

You have turned into an almost toddler, not an infant/baby

You are just so big

And yesterday you showed that you knew how to get off the bed and you took a step! Happy 10 months Eloise.

I know this because I found her at the top of the stairs about an hour ago. I didn’t hear her on the monitor just heard her little voice at the top of the stairs, ran over an there she was peeking over the top stair! Apparently it is time to start closing the gate when I go downstairs and leave her to keep sleeping. On the plus side she seems to know how to get off the bed the correct way now!

Happy 10 months!

So on my ivillage 2009 March Wild Thing board, I signed up to do a day in the life post months ago. This week it is finally Eloise’s turn. I forgot to take pictures on Friday though and weekends are nothing like normal weekdays so I didn’t want to do the pictures then documenting Eloise’s day. Yesterday I took a bunch of pictures to show off Eloise’s day, I obviously didn’t get pictures of everything, but it is a pretty complete look at her basic day. So here is a day in the life of Eloise

I sleep in the big bed with Mommy, Daddy sometimes sleeps here to, but he sleeps with my big brother Desmond a lot too. Desmond comes into my bed in the mornings after Daddy leaves and nurses and then gets Mommy up, sometimes he gets Mommy up too, but today I’m sleeping in!

Well I was sleeping in, but I woke up early, just not as early as my Mommy and brother. Mommy, I don’t look the best in the mornings, no pictures please.

Ahh there is my brother giving me a good morning hug, I like good morning hugs and my big brother.

Now I am much more awake, we can go downstairs now Mommy.

After my morning nursing and diaper change Mommy puts me down and gives me some of my favorite food, pretzels. I like to eat them while I’m cruising around the train table.

After I finished my pretzels Desmond wanted to listen to his favorite song, the Ghostbusters theme song, I like dancing to music, it is fun.

I woke up way to early though, so I am ready for a midmorning nap around 10:30, I’ve been cutting down to one nap a day, but today I really need two. So I nurse and fall asleep on Mommy and the Boppy. Mommy is so comfortable. I get to nap till my brother has a potty accident and needs Mommy’s help, so I only get to nap for 30 minutes, but I feel much better after it.

Now it is time to play again. Mommy is working on starting lunch.

Mommy takes me into the kitchen with her to finish making lunch, since I am crying, I explore the kitchen while she cooks, she doesn’t get any pictures though because she is busy making 3 different lunches. I get my lunch which is yummy. I got pasta, leftover fish (salmon stuffed with a crab and shrimp mixture) and mixed veggies, plus a straw cup full of water. I really like it, I love my fish it is so yummy.

After lunch is playtime again, I am playing in the tent with my brother, he has turned it on its side, which is even more fun.

Now it is time for my main nap. Mommy doesn’t have a picture of me from yesterday, but here is a slightly older one. I sleep in the carrier so Mommy can deal with Desmond as well, since I won’t sleep solo. I love sleeping on my Mommy, I take a nice long 2 1/2 hour nap.

Now my brother asks Mommy about taking a bath so we all go upstairs and Mommy runs the bath and puts me in. Desmond decides he would rather brush his teeth for 30 minutes so I get a nice long bath to play in while he brushes his teeth. Finally Mommy decides he’s brushed his teeth long enough, since he says no to the bath now, she takes me out and we go to the bedroom to get diapers on.

Desmond likes to pose in pictures, you can see his favorite toothbrush in this picture, with me.

Now we snuggle on the bed, Mommy decided to put on a Backyardigans Episode for my brother because he is grumpy, so she figures he needs some downtime. I play in the bed and snuggle up with everyone, I like snuggling and playing. I stood by myself in the bed too, but my Mommy didn’t get my picture, I am good about not letting her get pictures of me standing with no support, I keep thwarting Mommy’s attempts to get that picture.

After the Backyardigans episode is done, we come back downstairs, and a couple of minutes later Daddy gets home! I love my Daddy. Daddy is co-opted by my brother, he wants to play on the PBS kids website, I come along and play with them too. I like my Daddy.

Dinner is done after we finish playing on the website and I get to eat some. We did tuna casserole tonight, I like fish and pasta so it works well for me. It is yummy, my brother doesn’t eat a lot though.

After dinner it is time to play again. Daddy is playing Desmond’s favorite Xbox360 game, Ghostbusters, I decide that bouncing on the pillow is fun. So that is what I do.

After Daddy finishes playing for my brother we all get ready and head into the car, Mommy and Daddy have a couple of things to get at Target. Desmond and I fall asleep in the car so Mommy sits in the car with us. Daddy gets back and we drive some to get home. Once we get home, Daddy puts Desmond in bed and then puts me up on his back where I continue to sleep. I love snuggling.

When Mommy and Daddy decide to go to bed I move into the bed and nurse a bit before continuing to sleep all night long, with a couple of breaks to nurse, I love being right next to my Mommy, it makes it easy to nurse when I need to at night.

That’s my day I hope you enjoyed it. I left out some of my nursings and other things, but in general I get to play most days, with my brother, it is fun. I love my brother and Mommy and Daddy.

This afternoon Desmond and I had the following conversation.

Desmond: Want blue ice pop
Me: We don’t have blue ice pops, Dada and Dadi have blue ice pops.
Desmond: Go see Dada and Dadi, get blue ice pop.
Me: I don’t think so.
Desmond: Go in car, no stay home, go Dada and Dadi, get pop
Me: Nice try

Can’t say he doesn’t have problem solving skills.

We did Christmas at our house this year. It just seemed easier to have my in-laws come here then to try to haul all of us and our stuff over to their house. They ended up spending the night Christmas night since we had a nice ice/slush storm come through so it was easier all around that way. We all had a good time and Eloise and Desmond got way to many toys to add to the way to many toys they had already recieved from my parents and us for Hanukkah and from some of my relatives at my Grandmother’s Christmas party. We are now officially drowning in toys! Anyways here are some pictures of the two of them on Christmas day.

First the tree before they got to the presents, the pile in the back on the big box is Eloise’s, the pile in front is Desmond’s

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Here are a couple of pictures of us doing Hanukkah. You can see both Eloise and Desmond admiring the Menorah and then you can see Eloise opening one of her presents. We had a nice Hanukkah, though a menorah, a 2 1/2 year old and a 9 month old don’t mix very well, so the menorah got moved to the kitchen stove after it was lit so no one would play with it or knock it over.

Here are a few pictures of Desmond and Eloise enjoying themselves at Mommom’s Christmas party in mid-December. We all had a great time and it was nice to see everyone on that side of the family. Desmond had a bunch of fun playing with some of my younger cousins and Nate. Eloise had fun charming everyone there.

I don’t really have a post to go with these, they are just a couple more photos I took in December.

The first two are Desmond playing with Eloise’s new blocks she got for Hanukkah. He made quite a tall block tower with them.

Next are a couple of pictures of Eloise sleeping, Desmond and Eloise looking at each other and Desmond giving his sister a kiss.

The last one is Eloise eating black beans. She is such a neat eater!

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

It was remarkably hard to find just one picture to sum up each month.

We play with paints a lot here. Desmond loves to use his paint brush and paint and he also loves using his finger paints. These are some pictures of him playing with his finger paints in November. He had a lot of fun and a bath after he was finished, since he decided to paint his whole body including the bottom of his feet!