This is the first monthly update post where I’m writing it and feeling really emotional about her age. 10 months feels way too close to a year old, and it couldn’t possibly be a full year since I had her… Right?!?

“The days are long but the years are short” has never rung more true for me.

When I look at the photo above, I see a toddler and not my tiny baby anymore! In the last month, she’s really starting to look more like a little girl which is both exciting and a little sad.

It’s only in her face though, because she’s still a peanut. The dress she’s wearing in these photos is nine months and you can see in the standing pic below that it’s all the way down to her ankles. Poor kid has short legs just like her mom!

She’s made a lot of developmental strides this month and seems to understand a lot more than she did only a few weeks ago. She’s also incredibly mobile and we’re in the process of baby proofing so I’ll write about that once we have it on lock.

For now, here is a recap of the last month with Amalia!

Dress / Basket / Rug / Monthly Milestone Cards c/o

Milestones this month

Walking with walker: We bought her this walker toy because we wanted something small, and she loves it. She plays with the buttons on the front in a seated position and will get up and stand with it constantly. She pushes it around slowly but surely, and every day gains a little bit more traction.

Waving: She loves to wave hi and bye bye to people and has started doing it when we leave the house and when she first sees Boots in the morning which makes me think that she really gets it. It seems silly, but that feels like a big deal for some reason!

Another word: She’s only said it once, but she loves when we blow bubbles with a bubble wand. One day I was doing it for her, and out of the blue she yelled bubbles! I freaked out, obviously. Maybe it was a one time situation, but I’m counting it.

Four more teeth: Let me tell you, getting four teeth at once is not great. Not great for the baby and not great for the parents. There’s a lot of clinginess, a lot of drool, some crying, and other fun things I won’t get into. And another tooth is coming in now. This poor kid couldn’t catch a teething break all month. But my thinking is that it’s better to knock them all out at once rather than drag out the process. Not that we have any choice in the matter.

HER SCHEDULE

Schedule is a strong word for what we have going on right now. For the first time in her life, things are kind of up in the air in terms of napping. I keep her eating times as well as her wake up and nighttime routine times the same every day, but her naps are all over the place.

The problem began when she learned how to stand up in her crib and started getting FOMO at daycare because she could see her friends. She wouldn’t nap at all during the day and come home exhausted and a hot mess. We talked it out with the teachers and our game plan was to push her to just one nap at school, so she goes down at 12 or 12:30pm after her lunch. It works, but she’ll only sleep for up to an hour and a half which is not enough. Sometimes she takes another nap when she gets home at 3pm and sometimes she doesn’t which makes planning our days a little tricky.

Then there are some mornings where she does take a first nap. It’s really all over the place. On weekends when she’s home she does two solid naps, one at 9:30am and one at 2pm, and I know she’d do that daily if we had her home, but we’re working with what we’ve got so we’re going with it. It’s not ideal but this kind of stuff rarely is!

The other change is that we cut down her bottles by an ounce each. She wasn’t eating a lot of solid food, so we did this and she’s back to normal again. Because she’ll be off formula in the next few months (crazy!) we’re still figuring out how the weaning process will go and how long it will take.

Here is her schedule… most of the time.

6:45am- Wake up
7:00am- Feed 1- 6 oz of formula (plus probiotics) and solids
8:30am- Off to day care (on weekdays)
11:00am- Feed 2- 6oz of formula and solids
12/12:30pm- Nap
1:30/2pm- Wake up
3:00pm- Feed 3- 6oz formula, no solids
3:30pm- Nap 2 (sometimes)
5:30pm- Dinner time solids
6:00pm- Bath/massage
6:20pm- Feed 4 (9 oz), then right to bed
6:30/6:45pm- Asleep

HER DISPOSITION

She was always a little spitfire but now she’s added some serious sass. She knows how to say no, and she knows how to do things that she isn’t allowed to… And does them on purpose! I had no idea that this would be starting so early, so I was caught off guard. But we’re continuing to tell her no when things aren’t ok and stick to our guns on that.

With her teething she’s become clingy for a few weeks which is unlike her, but I think she was just in pain and maybe a little scared. It got to the point last week where she’d sob real tears if I put her down for even a second. It’s starting to die down now thank goodness, but she is having a hard time with day care drop off which has never been an issue in the past. It kills me to see her crying as I walk away, but her teachers assure me that she’s fine within a matter of seconds.

Besides that, she’s been amazing. She’s curious, happy, a little jokester, and active as always. From day one she’s never stopped moving and as we get closer and closer to walking, I’m getting more and more terrified of the chaos that is about to takeover our household.

Her favorite foods

She goes through phases with foods on a daily basis now. It’s insane how one day she’ll love something and the next day she’ll hate it. That makes my job as her personal chef super fun. The things I always know she will eat if nothing else works are blueberries and cheese. She’s an addict.

I’ve been trying to get creative with recipes because I feel like I feed her the same things over and over again and now that she’s on less puréed food, I want to make sure she’s getting enough veggies. Please send your favorite toddler recipes my way stat! One of her favorite ones was spinach quesadillas. I made the filling by mixing steamed spinach, cheddar, a little cream cheese, salt, and cumin in a food processor. I made enough so that I could make the quesadillas for a few days. When it was meal time, I spread some of it on a tortilla and baked it.

Another favorite were muffins I made with carrots, zucchini, bananas, and applesauce. I’ll be sharing the recipe soon!

We’ve also been trying to take her out to lunch and dinner more, which she loves. She likes looking at people in restaurants and trying new things there. The bread basket is usually her favorite though so we’ve learned to not even show it to her when possible because then it’s all over. We usually order for ourselves and give her a bit of whatever we’re eating so she tastes as much as possible.

HER FAVORITE THINGS

She’s still into her usual faves: Boots, books, and bath time. Her favorite toy right now is the walker I mentioned above, but 9 times out of 10 she’ll reach for a book. I don’t know what it is about them, but she loves to look at each page for a long time. It literally looks like she’s reading which is kind of funny.

One of her favorite activities is to sit in front of her book case and pull out every single book, one by one, and throw them on the floor. Then she’ll pick up her favorites and “read” them. I hope her favorite thing next month is cleaning them up!

WORST MOMENT

Last weekend, she woke up one night with a fever of 103.5. I’ve never felt another human being so hot, but she was shivering hard. I was still groggy from my anesthesia and totally out of it, so it made me extra emotional. I gave her Motrin and held her until she stopped shaking, but anytime I tried to put her down, she would scream. Normally, I know it will end in a second so I’d leave her, but she was clearly feeling awful so I ended up holding her as she went in and out of sleep for almost four hours. I was exhausted but didn’t want to get up to wake up Anel because she was so calm and I kept thinking she’d pass out any second.

Eventually she fell asleep, and ended up being ok the next day, but she hadn’t been sick for a while and it broke my heart all over again to see her in pain. It never gets easier!

BEST MOMENT

Amalia is not and will never be a big snuggler (her biggest flaw as far as I’m concerned) but this month she learned how to give really good hugs and is quite generous with them. When I pick her up after a day at school or haven’t seen her in a few hours, she squeezes my neck and holds on tight. Then she pulls away, looks at my face with the biggest grin, laughs, and dives back into the hug. It is the highlight of my day every day. I know everything is a phase, but I’m hoping this one is extra long because it’s so so good.

Read her one month, two month, three month, four month, five month, six month, seven month, eight month, and nine month posts.