I kept telling Brielle all day- “You’re ten months old today!” She would always grin lovingly at me, but I don’t think either one of us can really believe it. Brielle has made amazing strides into Personhood this month.
She has taken several isolated steps. My aunt Joy even said she saw her take two steps unassisted. Everyone tells me “Oh watch out, she’ll be into everything once she starts walking!” Umm…No, she already is into everything and has been for months! She is a super fast crawler. She pulls herself up on anything, and can manuever around the room upright as long as all the furniture is within arms reach. She climbs stairs and generally remembers to turn around and go back down properly. She can pull items off of tables she can’t even see over; Kevin says she has orangutan arms.
She is busy. She likes to shake, crinkle, tear, and otherwise maul any sort of paper, so beware if you haven’t yet read the funnies yet! She likes toys that make noise when she pushes buttons, and likes to chase a ball around. Her absolute favorite thing is to empty cabinets, drawers, bins and boxes. She takes out items, examines them thoroughly, then either tosses it aside or squeals delightedly and dives in playing with it for a bit. Then she repeats the entire process until she crawls off in search of other territory to conquer or she has emptied the container. She loves to rough house and be tossed about in a “Trot Trot to Boston” manner. She is playing well independently, but often wants a grown-up perspective and will ride contentedly around on my hip as I go about my business, until she sees something she wants to grab and then will squirm with a freakishly strong persistence until I let her down. Then she wants up again. Then down. Then up…
She eats just about anything. She really prefers to feed herself; we give her the stand bys of cooked veggies and ground beef and whatever we’re having for dinner so she slathers on the poppy seed chicken and manages to get some into her mouth. She doesn’t seem to like a lot of sauces, with the exception of barbequed meatballs. She drinks water and juice from a regular cup with assistance of course! She still prefers to nurse over anything else though, and that is okay with us.
We put her to bed around 8:15 and she usually sleeps until close to seven, with a nursing around 11 and 5. She takes a shorter nap in the morning-under an hour-around 10 and then a longer (we aim for two hours) in the afternoon around two. Ideally, Aviana’s Quiet time Play time coincides with this nap!
Brielle loves anything All Natural–rocks, sticks and flowers are preferable to boxes brim full of toys. She thinks it’s hilarious to put a pebble or two in her mouth and wait for me to come over to finger sweep it out of her mouth. Then her eyes twinkle merrily and she grins mischeiveously at her big rock eating joke.
She loves being outside, whether she’s crawling around looking for a puddle to play in or giggling delightedly in her swing she is one happy camper. Unless I get too far away that is. She loves Roscoe and the outside cats. She puts her hand on her face in a close approximation of the ASL sign for cat and makes a very meow like sound when the kitties come near. If she could make them come to her with the power of her stare alone, they would be right by her every second.
She is signing “all done” with a fair amount of consistency, along with indicating when she wants a drink by bringing her hand to her mouth and smacking her lips. She waves bye-bye regularly, and has recently started to point. She usually seems to be pointing just because she can, but sometimes is pointing because she has spied an object of her affection, such as a paper she wants to rip or a picture of a cat or 
her sister or herself of which she wants a closer look. Her favorite sign seems to be “phone” which she usually accompanies with a “HELLO” type noise.
She has a real affinity to music of any kind and will dance along to the beat. She claps and waves her arms in rhythm as well. Singing “Zaccheus” and “Wheels on the Bus” to her will almost always stop the screaming (which is usually in the car because she HATES to be constrained in her carseat).
One of my favorite things about Brielle is her heart and soul giggle. She loves to be chased, and will crawl away and look back expectantly as I “sneak” up on her. When I pounce, the laughter can make angels cry! She laughs easily, but Aviana probably has the monopoly on the giggles, since she can make Brielle laugh just by walking by or being in the same room. It’s delightful to watch them play.
I can’t even describe how much I adore this beautiful Brielle. And to think that God loves me unfathomably more than that–WOW!