Jane will be 10 months on Friday, but we’re making our way to Oklahoma today so I’m sneaking this one in a couple of days early. Look at that potbelly!

Miss Jane’s Grandma was in town for the past few days helping out while Adam was traveling for work. We had so much fun! Grandma Lisa taught Jane how to high five, saw her show off those swimming skills, and almost got away with feeding her Cheetos! Mommies can be such downers sometimes!

I really cannot overstate how much this kid loves books. This was how she “helped” baby-proof the bookshelves in her room. 

Last week, our friends Kirsten and Archie came to visit. Jane and I met up with them at the zoo and strolled around to see the animals and many, many, too many kids who had also come out on a beautiful day. By the end, these two were such fast friends they were playing footsie in their strollers. I told Jane that I know Archie’s super cute, but I don’t think her dad is ready for that quite yet.

This weekend we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Saturday and my first official Mother’s Day on Sunday.  I remember as a kid thinking of Mother’s Day as this stuffy, white table cloth, cards with ugly flowers and cheesy expressions, muuhther’s kind of holiday. This was decidedly not that. This was a new aviator sunglasses at an outdoor table at the Lebanese restaurant kind of holiday. I don’t think that as a kid, I could have accurately pictured what me as a mom would look like, but I must say, the reality is better than anything I could have imagined.

This picture was from our trip to Boston last month. I just love it though, and hadn’t had a chance to show it to you. Plus, there’s something about the way I’m standing that takes me back to a year ago when that little peanut was on the inside for my first unofficial Mother’s Day.

I’m sitting here watching my baby cry, doing nothing to stop it. What I hate most about it is knowing that this is not the first time, nor is it the last.

At her nine month check up the other day, the pediatrician said, “She’s crawling, right? Well, she’s army crawling, stomach on the floor? Scooting around while sitting up? Pulling up to her knees?”

“No, no, no, and still no.” She checked her out, tested her fine motor skills, problem solving skills, communication skills, muscle tone, if you can call it that, and all are perfectly normal if not ahead of schedule.

She just doesn’t want to move. The pediatrician suggested something we already do multiple times a day, just taken to the next level. Level of misery. I put her on the floor with a toy out in front of her just out of her grasp and wait. She tries, sometimes even getting on her stomach to reach it. But when it’s out of reach, she whines, and whining turns to crying, and crying turns into hysteria. I had been picking her up when it got to the crying stage, knowing that very soon even the toy out of reach would no longer make her happy. But the pediatrician warned against that, saying that she would learn to cry in order to be picked up.

So I let her cry. Usually babies need to “cry it out” to go to sleep on their own. For Jane, sleep took about five minutes of crying one night. Sleep is not our issue. Apparently, Jane needs to cry it out to move.

I’m sure there are plenty of experts out there who would disagree with the pediatrician’s advice. There are certainly some who disagree with crying it out for sleep, and sleep is a more essential function than crawling. Experts aside, I’m not sure I agree and I’m certainly not sure it’s going to be effective. That being said, I know that one of the most important things we can teach Jane in these early years is that she is capable of overcoming challenges in her life. So we’ll keep trying…

On the bright side, at nine months old, she might already be smarter than me. I put her down on a blanket yesterday with toys out of her reach. As soon as I stood up, she started pulling the blanket towards her to get the toys. I honestly hadn’t even thought of that.

Nine months old. When did that happen? I don’t know, but I think my back has a pretty good idea. This little pumpkin is getting heavy!

Too bad pink and white footie pajamas don’t give a girl street cred.

“Ok, be honest. Do the ruffles on this swimsuit make me look fat?”

Last week, we started swim lessons, and Jane liked splashing around in the water! This week, class was cancelled due to contamination, if you know what I mean. (No? Well, A TODDLER POOPED IN THE POOL.) Clearly, the CEO was not happy about missing class.