10 months old ⇒
Elise was 10 months old on July 6th. She is crawling all about and pulling herself to standing all the time. Her favourite game right now is Out--that is, taking all the toys out of her toybox, things out of my purse, cards out of the Hairy Big Person's wallet (Mama likes this one best because she keeps giving me the cash! Good girl!) Actually, just yesterday she learned how to put her RollArounds into the gumball machine so I'm hoping this will be the start of a new game - In
Other favourite games include getting turned upside down by the Hairy Big Person, playing chase on the couch (it would take too long to explain that one), playing with the magnets on the fridge and feeding whoever is trying to feed her: 
She is a very clever girl, when I tell her something is not for eating, she puts it up in the air for me to take away from her. This is very handy except I don't necessarily WANT her to give me everything that can't go in her mouth, just to stop eating it! She has also learned how to point. Interestingly, I recently heard that babies who point will not be autistic because a) autistic children don't have the fine motor skills for pointing and b) they are internally focussed and so do not notice the world around them. Not sure if this is true or not but the information comes from two reliable sources. We worry warts have to cling to whatever hopeful information we glean.
Elise has learned a couple of fun party tricks. When I say "punch it out, sister!" she puts her little fist up to me to "punch out" and if you say "who has stinky feet?" she sticks her foot in the air for you to sniff (at which point the sniffer has to say "pooey sticky feet!") Always good for a laugh.
Elise and I have been doing some hiking with some other moms. We enjoy being out in the fresh air and I feel so blessed to have this whole summer with her before I have to go back to work. We have hiked a bit on the North Shore, in parks in the Fraser Valley, Cultus Lake, and Port Moody. We spend a lot of time with our neighbours Charlotte (we swear we were separated at birth) and Isabella who Elise just loves and other folks we met in our post natal class in the fall. In fact, the first babies of our group just turned one if you can believe that! Happy Birthday Camille and Dhevon! Some of Elise's other friends include Connor from our hiking group and Kian (she does love the boys)! 