Birthday!

Darling! You're almost a year old. One year ago right now I was in labor at the hospital. You were born at 3:07 on the 25th. It seems like a distant dream, and at the same time I can remember flashes of it with perfect clarity.

You are amazing. You started walking a week and a half ago, and now you are fearless and love walking, no matter how many times you fall on your bottom. If you're in a real hurry, you still crawl sometimes, because you are a super-fast crawler.

You say so many words now and make so many signs. You've added "all done," squirrel, back, alley, whoo (owl noise), and many others. I swear I'm not being biased when I say I think you are very advanced in your vocabulary.

You are also very energetic, curious, and loving. You give hugs and kisses now, and you give GREAT hugs. A visual of you I will probably always remember is you, in your stroller, leaning forward and kicking your legs, which is how you almost always ride. You never just sit back and relax.

You love to be taken around the house to see everything. You want to look at everything on the mantle, all the fridge magnets, my Alice in Wonderland figures, etc. You also like to walk around and try to pull things off tables and out of bags and drawers and shelves. If you can reach it, it will be in your hands soon.

You still love to cuddle and nurse, and you also eat pretty much any food we give you.

I love you so much, and this year has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for being my sweet baby.

I love you more than I thought I ever could (and I was pretty sure it was a lot).

Love,
Mom

Milestones - almost 11 months

We've had many milestones this month, sweetpea. Your grandma and I were just adding up all the words and signs you say, and came up with a list of about fifteen of each.

Words:
Hi
Bye
Mom
Dad
clock
duck
up
night
eye
butt
boom
Odwalla
Boompah
bubble
caw
bow wow wow
cluck
quack

Signs:
more
eat
all done
bird
hi & bye
hat
dog
water
frog
book
fish
milk
flower
butterfly
diaper

You also put together two sentences. You said "Bye Daddy" one morning just after your dad left for work. You also signed "birds eat" when you saw seagulls eating on campus at Kit Carson.

Tonight you took one step on your own. You can walk anywhere if you're holding on to our fingers, but until tonight you haven't taken any steps on your own. But tonight you were standing, and your dad said "You should walk after the cat." As if taking his suggestion, you took one step!

You love your books, and you often bring them to us to read. You also give kisses to your dolls with a little encouragement. You play peekaboo and pattycake. You bounce when music comes on, and lately you've been trying to sing along. You have been pretending to blow your nose -- you don't really know how, but you put paper towels to your face and blow with your lips. You say "Mmmm" whenever you see apples, whether in pictures or in person. You can point at eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and hair when asked, not always perfectly accurately, but most of the time. When we see a bear or lion picture, we growl, and you growl back. You love to be chased around by Daddy, and you laugh hysterically when he chases you.

When you see Boompah in the computer room, you scoot over to him and signal to get up so he can show you videos on YouTube. You also like the BabySigns videos, and you watched the Muppets at your Grandpa's house. (You signed "frog" at the picture of Kermit.)

I can't believe you'll be one in just over a month! You're getting to be such a big, smart, sweet girl. I love you very much.

Love,
Mom

Ten months!

Hello, my beautiful, sweet, perfect daughter. You are now ten months old. I'm starting to think about first birthday parties, even. You aren't walking yet, but you are standing competently and confidently. You eat damn near anything. You laugh a lot. One of your favorite things is sticking your index finger out like E.T., and when someone touches it with their index finger, you laugh your ass off, particularly if they say something like "Bzzz" or pretend to be electrocuted. You are crazy for peekaboo, and laugh when someone hides behind something and then pops out. You love eating out at restaurants, and can gnaw through a piece of bread, no matter how crusty. You're good natured, although you want to do whatever you like. You want, for example, to throw everything from the table onto the floor and do not want to be prevented from it.

You're a pretty good sleeper now, and usually can be put down at night without any fuss. You are resistant to naps this last week, though. You love birds, and whenever you see them you flap your arms and say "Caw!" You're going to Babysigns class again starting tomorrow, so hopefully you'll pick up some more signs. Now you do approximations of eat, more, nurse, milk, bird, and you do hat really well. You're also working on water.

You have picked up a few more words, including clock, and you now make a "vroom" noise when playing with your car. Your favorite noise is "MMMM," which you say whenever you see, smell, or taste food you like. The other day at the coffee shop, you apparently made "MMMM" noises at a family eating muffins, but they ignored you.

You have four teeth, and I think your hair may be getting a little darker. It's not filling in a heck of a lot, though. The little bit at the back is longer and curls up in a funny way.

This morning you crawled into the shower in your jammies while your dad was in there with the water on. You're funny like that.

Okay, that's all.

I love you,
Mom

9 months!

You will be nine months old tomorrow, on Christmas day. You have been delighting in taking the ornaments off the tree and dragging the presents around by their ribbons, ripping paper wherever possible.

You still army crawl, but you get around by cruising a lot -- holding onto things and essentially walking. You'll also "walk" if I hold your hands.

You babble a lot, saying "ah mama da da blah blah na na kuh puh a wa wa." You have said several words, but you don't say them all the time. The things that you have clearly said at least once include:
Mama
Dada
Odwalla (Grandma's cat)
nana (for banana)
night
bear
hi
bye
up
bow wow wow
la la la (in the context of a book that says the same)

And you are working very hard, but not quite there, on:
car
cat
duck
dog
quack
Boompah

You have just recently learned to sleep in your crib at night. You still cry for a little while, but you're getting better sleep.

Right now it's Christmastime, so you are interested in snowmen and nutcrackers, especially.

You love birds, and any time you see them, you flap your arms and say "Caw! Caw!"

You can wave hello and goodbye, and you know the signs for milk, nurse, eat, hat, bird, and you sort of know duck and no. You also point at things you're interested in.

You're a huge flirt, and in public you're always trying to get people's attention. When you finally do, you grin and act coy.

You just got your third tooth, the top front one on the right. It came in Saturday the 20th.

You fall a lot, and right now you have a big bruise on your forehead from falling off the couch. You also scratch yourself with your fingernails, usually by your eye or inside your ear. The result is that you look beaten-up a lot of the time.

You like to follow your Dad and me around the house, especially into the bathroom, and you have figured out that you can just push open that door, so we have to be pretty vigilant.

You still nurse, although we'll see how long it lasts if you keep biting me! Ouch, young lady!

You like to explore the house, opening up any doors you can, pulling on cords, pushing buttons. My laptop has fallen on the floor about three times.

Generally, though, you are a great, well-behaved, sweet baby. You love to be read to, and will listen to books for a long time. You also seem to like restaurants, and will patiently sit in a high chair as long as we are there. You also LOVE getting bites of grown-up food.

That's all for now. It's so much fun getting to know your little personality. Right now, you say "Mama" a lot, and every time I answer "yes, sweetheart. Yes my love. Yes darling." You seem to think it's a game, but I just love hearing you say Mama.

7 1/2 months

You just amaze me every day. You have been saying mama, dada, hi and bye. You don't say them perfectly or regularly, but we definitely hear them.

You are working on some other words, too, like hat, duck, ball, and book.

Your receptive language is quite good now, too. Earlier today I said "Come to mama" and you immediately began working your way toward me. You also open wide when we say "banana," you recognize the words for most of your favorite foods, for the cat, and for all the people you love. You look forward to kisses and nursing.

You can get lots of places on your own. You can crawl just about anywhere in the house, and in the living room, you can stand and walk around the coffee table and the couch and chair as long as you can hold on and reach.

You help us by lifting your legs when we change your diaper and by putting your arms in sleeves. You open your mouth for nearly any food, although bananas and bread are probably your favorites. You would like to try almost everything we eat. You stare at food as it goes to our mouths.

You are, at this moment, trying to help me type... I'd better go.

Banner day

Wow, you're amazing. You started off the day by sucking on your toe for the first time. Then you tried to climb onto the counter at Grandma's house. You said "hi" to the cat. When Boompah said "Bye," you said "Bah." Later you said "Mom," and Grandma turned to you and started to say "Gosh, it sounded just like you said 'Mom...'" when she realized you were staring at a picture of me. And then you crawled all the way across the couch on your hands and knees, the first time you've ever crawled like that. Apparently you just had a developmental leap today! Congratulations, and thanks for adding "Mom" to your vocabulary. You have no idea how happy it makes me.

Almost 7 months

This weekend you'll be seven months old.

We're still nursing, which is kind of amazing, since I went back to work and Grandma takes care of you all day. You got two teeth on the same day, and I think you have a top tooth coming now. You definitely say "hi" now, even though it sort of sounds like huh-iy. You also say "du! du!" when you see your toy duck. And you say "da da" a lot, although it's not always about Dad. You've also made your first sign, for water. When you see the sprinkler and Grandma says "water" and makes the water sign, you definitely try to emulate it.

You are standing up every chance you get, and you've even sidled along the coffee table in a sort of walking fashion. It's very slow and plodding, but you get around! You can turn around and take one hand off whatever you're holding onto. You like to crawl around and follow Daddy and the cat. You get VERY excited to see us when we come home, and you very clearly wave hello and goodbye.

You have been eating more solid foods -- you had some un-mushed rice today, and some diced pears this week, too. We've given you a chunk of apple to gnaw on and you enjoyed that. You LOVE oatmeal, avocado, spinach, sweet potato, applesauce, and peas.

You make all sorts of silly faces and noises. You sniff, snort, growl, fake cough, and squeal.

That's about all for now.

I love you more than you could imagine,

Mom