10 Months

I know I have blogged about her for the past ten months, but . . . what? Since when is Maren that old? Let's not even talk about how old Addi looks -- there is no baby pudge left there and she is such a big girl in every way (she will be a tween before we know it and Brian and I will be dealing with eye rolling, makeup and boys, just to name a few unavoidables in our future-- every time I mention this poor Brian starts to sweat a little and get this crazy look in his eyes). Anyway, time is flying by and Maren is constantly amazing us with her growth, milestones and general quirkiness.Maren is the queen of self play. All we have to do is let her loose in a room full of toys and she will explore, bang, lick and destroy like the little tornado she is. Sometimes when Addi reverts back to her "I'm going to sit here looking bored until you tell me exactly what do, including a full visual demonstration, and then I will immediately get bored with that and look around sullenly until we start all over again," I simply tell her to look at Maren and do what she is doing.

The girls still get along beautifully most of the time, but they have their moments. Here is a picture montage of what happens in our house when Maren tries to take away something from big sister and she doesn't get her way. She is quite opinionated and often resorts to screaming when she doesn't get her way.
Maren seems to have excellent motor control. She loves to pick up the little shapes from Addi's Candyland Castle game and put each one into this little tube structure that is a part of the game. She can also pick up the balls from the dinosaur guy and put them in his holes (that sounded bad, but that is how it works) so that a song will play. She is an excellent crawler and has taken one step without assistance, but she quickly realizes that she is unsupported and squats back down into a crawl. She is very tentative about walking, so it may still be a while -- it seems as though she could do it physically if she were mentally ready. We're in no hurry, so hopefully she just takes her time :) She is a pro at squatting down with something in her hands and then getting excited and jetting straight up into a free-standing position, then squatting down again.

One of Maren's favorite things is to crawl into Addison's room and systematically remove all the big girl books from the book shelf and throw them on the floor. Super fun!
Maren is still a great eater/nurser. She loves a wide variety of foods and doesn't seem to have any food aversions yet (and we've even given her eggs and yogurt, so I think she is past her eczema issues from earlier on), and she doesn't seem to have any of the texture issues that Addi had at this age. Her absolute favorites are: avocado, chopped turkey, cheese, yogurt, pita bread and garlic naan.

Maren has actually learned to snuggle a bit! As long as she can still kick her feet. She will actually lay her head down and just seem to enjoy the snuggles. I thought one night (actually the wee morning) that since Maren had just woken up and needed to nurse and was really groggy that she might want to nurse in our bed and then snuggle with her parents until it was time to get up. Nope. First she thrash nursed -- kicking, pinching and slapping the entire time -- in pitch black. Then she started crawling around, grabbing our hair and faces -- in pitch black. Finally, she ended the experiment by head butting me in the face (I had a literal bruise on my cheek afterward) and laughing. What a stinker!
Here are some more pics of the goofy girls.
Addi is doing fantabulously! Her speech therapy is producing some awesome results. She is so much easier to understand now and probably won't need additional therapy past this summer. After having her evaluated through Children's Hospital we learned some interesting things about the way Addi learns. Even though she is quite average in most areas, and behind in her speech articulation, she ranks in the 98th percentile for grammar and phonics. It is really odd to work on her letters with her and show her one that she has seemingly known since she was 2, and she can't seem to recognize it. But if I tell her what sound that same letter makes she can tell me what word it spells and other words it is found in. We have been doing some workbook activities with her and try to compensate a bit for her overwhelming aptitude for auditory learning. She continues to love preschool and will be going an additional day next year, which excites her greatly! She is also still loving swim class and is still working on kicking and "swimming" to the wall from the middle of the lane. Recently Addi's art skills have reached a whole new level. She started to draw more animals and even gives them hearts on their chests. The first pic is of two dogs and her name, the second pic is of a bunny with a heart and its pet dog.

Cute, squinky, wild, monkey noodle girls that we love!