Leah (aka Baby F) is 10 months old today. She loves her food, loves books (they are her favourite toys) and loves people. She squeals with delight when we tickle her tummy and sometimes she just squeals to hear the sound of her own voice. She waves goodbye (sometimes with both hands) and says “bye”.
She tolerates tummy time but will usually roll on to her back within a few minutes. No crawling yet although she has managed to get from one end of the mat to the other by means of rolling. Some tentative signs that she’s thinking about it but no actual crawling (or shuffling along on her bum). She’s quite content to sit there and play with her toys and make all kinds of noises.
There’s some debate as to what she means when she says “da-da”. Naturally I think she’s referring to me but she’s also called L “dada” and she can’t say “mama” yet (although she has said “mada” and “bada”) so it could be a general word she uses for people she likes. I have no doubt that while she would be getting an A or an A+ for language development, her gross motor development report-card would read “Can do better”. Her fine motor development is good though and she is quite adept at ripping off parts of pages that are not stuck down firmly.
Incidentally, we are ignoring the peadiatrician’s advice to take her to a physiotherapist since we think there’s still plenty of time. Babies develop at different rates. Our baby loves chattering more than moving around.
She also has one tooth. It’s dear (although not so dear when she sinks it into L at breast-feeding time!) And mostly she sleeps through the night (although we’ve had a few horror nights when she had a cold). I was dispatched off to the chemist in the middle of the night last week to get some nasal drops.
Otherwise, not much to report. It’s the last day of school today so I’m looking forward to being on holiday. I will still see a few private patients until just before Christmas and then I’ll take a break for three weeks. I hope to be able to read a few books in between looking after Leah. The grannies also need a break so I imagine that I will be doing a lot more baby-sitting than reading.
I still hope to be able to talk about books and reading in this blog again sometime. Perhaps I should review children’s books. Julia Donaldson is a hit but we’ve recently discovered Emily Gravett. This is one of Leah’s Christmas presents. The best part is at the back where Cedric the dragon gets so annoyed with his mum (who has fallen asleep rather than read his favourite dragon story for the zillionth time) that he ‘accidentally’ breathes a ball of fire and burns a hole in the actual book that you’re reading. It’s very cute.
Posted by Pete 
