A Ten-Month Treasure

A couple of weeks ago, as Moriah's 10-month birthday was approaching, I was contemplating this post and thought to myself, "I really don't know what I'm going to write about.  It seems like nothing new has really happened with Moriah this month.  She continues to be the easy-going, happy little jewel that she's always been; and she continues to develop just like she should.  But she hasn't hit any major milestones or accomplished anything particularly new or exciting, so I just don't know what to write!"  :)

And then, on February 6, three days before she turned 10 months, something happened, and suddenly I knew what to write:  Moriah got her first tooth.  :)

It's her left front bottom tooth, and it's faintly visible in the photo above (but you might have to strain your eyes to find it).  :)  A few days before I discovered her tooth, she had been a little under-the-weather, having a fever for a couple days that was in the 99 degree range but never climbed too much higher than that.  Some of the boys were mildly sick, too, so I assumed she had picked up a little something from them and didn't think too much about it.  Even when she woke up fussy in the night on two separate occasions (something she almost NEVER does), I didn't attribute it to teething, but figured she was just dealing with a little cold or other insignificant bug.  It didn't occur to me until after I found the tooth that it might have been teething!

Moriah's fine-motor skills are quite good, as evidenced by the fact that she's been picking up small pieces of food to feed herself for quite a while already.  But her large-motor skills are another story; just like her big brothers, she is "late" for all those wonderful milestones, like sitting up, crawling, standing, etc.  When her ten-month birthday rolled around, I still had not seen her get from a laying-down position to a sitting-up one by herself.  For weeks now, I've felt like she's on the verge of crawling, but still the ability to do that eludes her.  She'll get up on all-fours...

 ...like this...

...but she doesn't go anywhere, and very soon, she plops back down on her tummy on the floor.  I am not worried a bit.  If she had turned out to be the type of baby who crawls at 7 months and walks at 10, I might have thought something was wrong with her because our Fisher babies just don't do that!!  ;-)

The picture below makes me smile.  Well, OK, all of these pictures have that effect on me: but this one in particular does because it shows Moriah as her left hand is getting ready to be popped in her mouth so she can suck on her fingers.  She sort of does the opposite of a Star Trek Vulcan salute as she draws those two middle fingers together...  :)

...then gets them in her mouth.  The classic Moriah pose these days involves those two fingers in her mouth, her right hand tugging on her ear, and usually her left pointer finger up her nose!  :)

I think it's especially cute how, when she's in this position, if she catches your eye, she can be enticed to smile, even with a mouth full of fingers.  :)

Moriah continues to take two naps a day, which is lovely because I can use that time for school with the boys.

She continues to eat heartily of whatever we put before her (which is almost always regular food, not baby food).

She continues to nurse--usually four times a day, but sometimes three.  My milk supply has not been the greatest with her, and I've thought about trying to be more consistent about pumping so I can build up my supply.  But with only two months until she turns a year--the age at which I've always weaned my babies--I'm not feeling very motivated to go to the effort of pumping to achieve that.  Besides, she eats so well, and that reassures me that she's not exactly starving.  :)

She continues to be on the small side, however, weighing only 16 pounds (an unofficial weight using our bathroom scale).  When I measured her, she was 28 inches, up an inch from 27 inches at 7 months.

She continues to drink water from a sippy cup every day (I've heard so much bad stuff about juice that I don't even want to get Moriah started on it).

She continues to be an absolute joy!  

Truly she is a treasure!!  :)