Eleven months ago we had a baby.
This past month it seems like she just grew and learned new things every day. She decided on November 8th that she would become a walker full-time. Crawling is too slow and the girl's got places to go and things to do.
This month she's grown out of most of her 6 month and 9 month clothes. We had headed into 12 month clothes for which I'm almost not ready. She has mastered the words "da da", "uh oh", "ball", "hot", and "bye" as well as others she repeats perfectly but will not say on command. She gives high fives and can find her nose, cheeks and ears with daddy's help. She loves to read books and pull all her toys out of her toy bin.
Her food vocabulary is also increasing weekly. Mashed potatoes, tomatoes, bread, cheese, eggs, cucumbers, noodles, fruit, and anything else that she can get her hands on. We still have a hard time giving her vegetables because we don't eat much of them anyway but anytime we have them they are on her tray and she always tries them. One vegetable we have had lots of luck with is tomatoes. She loves tomatoes so much I have to cut her off. I've never had to cut her off of anything before!
One thing that we are working on with her is walking while holding our hand. She was so independent in walking that we rarely ever held her hands and helped her walk so she never got used to it. And Little Miss Independent did not like it at first when we held her hand and walked with her but she is getting better. I am also working with her to do some basic sign language and one of these days she'll say mama right? The only sign she has partly down is "finished". If I ask her if she is finished or all done she puts her arms up and down a few times. Not really the sign for "finished" but at least she is consistent on it. But since she seems to learn new words quickly so I'm not sure how beneficial sign language will be if she can talk.
Shopping for Christmas for her has been fun but also a little frustrating because I don't want to just buy baby toys that she will outgrow in a few months. I want toys that she can grow into and continually learn from. We did buy her the Little Tikes Activity Garden for Christmas because I know she will grow into it and use it until she is at least 2 or 3 years old. We also bought her a couple books and a music toy which she can carry around the house.
We had Christmas with her one set of Great Grandparents over the weekend and while she did enjoy it she was exhausted and could not enjoy it to it's fullest extent. Out of all her toys she got her favorite was the plastic candy cane filled with Hershey kisses. Chocolate IS a girls best friend right?
We are so excited for Audra's first Christmas this Sunday. I see her eyes fill with joy and excitement when she sees all the fun...boxes and scraps of paper and plastic ties and tags. So glad we spent money on all those fun toys. ;)
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
