ten months (beatrice darlene)

A short–and late–update.

Beatrice has been ten months for three weeks, now. I can, however, still tell about her tenth month with fairly clear memory.

teething

This was the month of teeth. Because nothing can ever be done simply or conventionally, Beatrice cut first her bottom left front tooth–and then the upper left front tooth, so that she had two teeth on the same side, one directly on top of the other. Then, since this seemed to work so well (it was excellent for biting) she cut her upper left lateral tooth, so that she has three teeth all on the same side. Why? …Why not?

She was so fussy this month. She would hardly stand to be alone for more than a few moments. I suppose this relates to the discomfort from teething. She also went through a Wonder Week at the same time, which explains things; Wonder Weeks always make one especially clingy and unpleasant.

other unpleasantness

To make matters worse, we were also out of town and sharing a room with her during these teething-and-wonder-week-difficulties, so her sleep was excessively poor. We are actually still trying to undo all of the kinks that her sleep patterns have worked themselves into.

But she seems to have come to terms with the new teeth erupting, and her sleep is slowly working out. She does have a bit of a penchant for biting, but we’re working on it.

skill-building

When she would condescend to be on the floor and not held, she used that time to practice her reaching and rocking skills. Slowly and surely she learned to get up on all fours and rock, rock, rock before falling, splat, onto her belly. Her success in her crawling endeavors will have to wait for her next update (which is in about a week.)

She loves to mimic speech, and is fairly good at it when she does it. When you talk to her, she watches your mouth intently. It’s as if she is trying to figure out how you’e making all those weird sounds. Words she likes to say are: uh-oh, night-night, and I love you. Though sometimes that last one is said to herself in a mirror.