Eleven Months

Happy Eleven Months little angel girl!!!

Wow.  Eleven.  Next month brings you to the one year mark that always gets here way too quickly.  It's the one thing that parents always hear about, are expecting to experience, but never quite know what to do with - the speedy passage of time that surrounds the lives of our children.  But, God has been so gracious to us.  You are healthy and happy and full of the joie de vivre!

Just yesterday, you learned how to flush a potty.  Haha!  I was doing a quick clean of a bathroom and you caught sight of the handle on the side.  Oh yes, the look on your face expressed all the power and mischievousness that your little mind could imagine.  As your daddy said, you're enough of a stinker that you're going to be the one to throw things in the potty just to see them flush!  It's a good thing he has access to a database of plumbers.  Maybe we should put one on retainer now.

You are still crawling as your means of locomotion (yay!  not ready to give that up yet!), and you are still "cruising" by pulling up on things and using them to help you "walk".  We have caught you a number of times over the last month letting go while you were standing and remaining on your feet for a moment or two before sitting back down.

We get lots and lots and lots of babbling.  You still love patting on something or pointing to something and being told what its name is.  Dogs fascinate you, and Custard is like a mini, walking, shedding playground for you.

We are beginning to see the first stages of "independence", for lack of a better term.  You will look at us before you do something you know to be the wrong thing.  Like drop things off of your high chair.  And you're beginning to test your boundaries by having those first intentional tantrums.  Granted, they are mild and they are cute compared to what we know will be coming.  But, we're ready for 'em little one!  That's one of the problems of being the third baby.  It's not Mommy and Daddy's first rodeo.  We may have been clueless with Poodle and mostly clueless with Tooter, but we've got our collective gloves up this time.  And you are responding beautifully to the wee bits of discipline that babies can get, in your normal, sweet, accommodating way.

You've got two more teeth!  As of 7/16, you had a new tooth on top to the right of your front teeth and a new one on the bottom to the left of those front ones.  There is one more looking to break through any day now.  Teething is still bothersome to you, BUT, it's getting slightly better.  Just slightly, but still, we'll take what we can get.  Your toothy smile is just so cute.  So cute!!!

You are a whiz with the sippy cup.  And, it is still practically impossible to convince you to eat baby food.  (Don't know what happened!)  You want things you can pick up and hold and eat yourself.  Which is a challenge, because we're having to find things that you can gum (since you have no chewing teeth), but that have some nutritional value, that will also be easy on your tummy.  Yippee!  ::wink::  You're still nursing a lot, so that makes up for what you don't get vitamin-wise from your "real" food.  And, I can still convince you to eat a bit of yogurt, even though it is awfully baby food'ish to you.

Here are some things you like:
fish sticks
cheese (cheddar)
crackers
pretzels
rice (brown and white)
apples
blueberries, sort of
steamed carrots, sort of
cheerios
corn chex cereal

You kind of like pasta with a bit of tomato sauce, but pasta in general has a weird texture for you to chew up.

We have discovered that peanut butter is a big no-no right now.  I gave you a piece of a crust of bread cut from Poodle's pb&j, and it had a teensy bit of peanut butter on it.  The bread - you liked!  But, the peanut butter made your little face break out and your lips swell up.  Scared me a bit!  But, I don't think you have the kind of dangerous peanut allergy that is a cause for true alarm.  We just have to keep you away from the "strong stuff" for awhile.

Same thing with egg whites.  Not quite as extreme of a reaction, but still.  You can eat things with egg whites in them, like cookies or what-have-you.  But, scrambled eggs cause a bit of a reaction.  I have discovered, however, that you like scrambled egg yolks with cheese!  (and those are okay)

You have begun to "love love" things.  You'll put your sweet face down on various things and smile with a darling look in your eyes and wait for us to say "awww, Lollypop, loooove love!"  In fact, that's what you're doing in your eleven month progress picture.  You were love loving on Fuzzy Wuzzy!

My babygirl, you make us laugh, you make us sigh with pleasure.  Your giggle is our attitude adjustment, and your eyes are our reminder to do better.  We love you so much!