Dear Adele, you're 10 months old

Dear Adele,

You turned 10 months old this week. And you are growing up into an awesome little girl. It's such a delight to be your mummy and I pinch myself all the time to check whether you really are mine!

Here's a snapshot of what you're up to these days.

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  Crawling is no trouble at all. You zoom all over the place. Your Daddy especially likes to make you crawl through to the bathroom for your bath each evening. You giggle and pant all the way cause you know what's coming!

• You love standing up. Whenever there is something to pull yourself up on you do. One of your favourite spots is the gate between the lounge and kitchen. It is the perfect height for you and it makes this great banging noise when you rattle it. You'll happily stand there for 5 minutes giggling and rattling the cage while Mummy and Daddy work in the kitchen.

• You've now got 4 teeth. Those top two have been working their way down for the past month. It hasn't been that fun but you're a trooper.

• Puzzles are a favourite of yours. You especially like the one with wooden shapes that go on pegs (hard to explain!). You're an expert at taking the shapes off now and try really hard to fit them back on. And you're starting to get the hang of your Shape-O.

• Books are the other favourite. You have your own special shelf and adore pulling all the books off and flicking through the pages. You don't really stop to look at the pictures - you just turn turn turn the pages back and forth. And you're so gentle with them too - no ripped pages (even of the grown up books!)

• You love to sing and dance. You like to make the busy ball dropper play music so that you can wriggle to it. When it stops you'll put a ball in again so that you can sit back and dance. I often catch you humming along too!

• You think hats are hillarious. Although I'm not sure you realise that you're actually meant to keep them on! I put a hat or beanie on you, and you pull it off, and then you try to put it back on again.

• You're still not sleeping all that well. It takes you ages to fall asleep at night (Mummy nurses, rocks and cuddles you in your room) and then you wake up often. Once Mummy and Daddy go to bed you come in to our bed and sleep with us. It's so nice to have all the family in one bed together. And it also makes it much easier for Mummy to feed you in the night.

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  And in the day time you sleep in the buggy so that Mummy can rock you when you stir. You cuddle Sunny the Lion (Great Aunty Alison knitted him for you) while you sleep during the day.

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  You're slowly slowly getting more interested in eating solids. You went through a real feijoa frenzy last week!

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  You're quite a quiet peaceful girl when we go out and play with other babies. You'll hang back for a while and watch everything thats going on at first and once you're confident you'll happily run off and play without a second glance back at me!

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  Other mummys often comment to me on how confident and contented you are.  I always say "I'd like to think it has something to do with our parenting, but I think it's mostly personality!"

So, Dellie, that's a few things that you're up to these days. I can't wait to see what you'll do in the next month!

Love you so much,
Mummy