My baby, my tiny little preemie princess is now 10 months old. How is that even possible? Time is such a strange thing, both screaming past at an insane rate and also moving so slowly at times. Those early, impossible, dark days seemed to stretch on forever… and then all of a sudden they were over. My little girl is already 10 months old, and I simply can’t believe it. How did it go so fast? At the same time, it feels like forever – I can barely remember what life was like before my little person came along. Okay, that’s a bit of a lie; of course I can remember my life before Harley, but it sort of feels like she has always been a part of my life, that is how important she is now.
10 months ago, she was a tiny, helpless thing being fed through a tube. It was already an accomplishment that she could breathe on her own, and didn’t need oxygen. So much has changed in that time. She has grown, I have changed, our whole view of the world and our future has been radically and forever altered. Harley will always be my little baby, but she isn’t quite the tiny human that she once was. She is growing up so fast, and it’s so exciting (and terrifying) to watch. She is becoming her own person, and I love every second of it.
At the moment, she is desperate to figure out this crawling thing. She can sit on her own and play with her toys. But then she wants to reach a toy that’s a bit further, or go towards something that’s out of reach. She leans forward and starting crawling her arms out, but her legs just don’t cooperate yet. When I put her on her stomach, she mostly screams and gets upset with me – she is so very frustrated by the fact that she can’t get her body to do what she wants it to do. She also tries to pull herself up on things, mainly the coffee table. She gets about halfway there, but sometimes gets stuck and Dean or I have to reset her or she starts crying.
But she really doesn’t cry as much as she used to. Most of the time, she will sit and play with her toys, either on the floor or on the couch next to me while I play games. She likes to initiate games now, too, covering her face with her clothes or a blanket so that I can play peek-a-boo with her. She does the same with Dean while he smokes, hiding behind the coffee table and peeking out to see him outside. Other games she enjoys include anything with bouncing or jumping, as well as pulling on my hair or Dean’s beard.
She also loves her food. She is such a carnivore, always enjoying pork bangers or pieces of steak. She likes zucchini/marrow as well, and also seems to enjoy pasta and chips. She likes playing with spoons, but hasn’t quite figured out how they work as a means of getting food into her mouth. But that’s all fine because she is also still a total booby monster and loves to nurse.
Bath time has become a lot more fun now that Harley can sit and play to her heart’s content. She adores her bath toys, and loves to splash. I suppose it makes sense, then, that she also loves going swimming. It tires her out, but she enjoys learning all her swimming skills and has even started going underwater.
I love seeing her personality come out in all kinds of big and small ways. She now knows what she wants – she gets upset if I take her toy away for meal time, or when bath time is over, or when I put her down for a nap/sleep and she isn’t tired yet. She loves to laugh and smile, but can also be so serious when investigating something new. She can anticipate when fun things are going to happen, and she starts smiling and laughing.
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