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Sunday, July 7, 2013

11 months

Since I'm a week late, I'll talk about that too.  Because, just in the past few days, you have become toddler-ish.  You are still my smiley, drooley, squawking, toothless little baby, but goodness, you are into things.

This past month you took a trip to Oregon and a trip to a friends cabin.  You also survived nearly two weeks without Dad around (which really means you survived being around Mom for nearly 2 weeks without Dad around).  You learned to crawl up stairs, and do it very well until you get distracted and fall over.  Thankfully, only a couple minor tumbles so far, but there are so many stairs in this house that it's a constant battle.  Your sister is very good about keeping an eye out for you.  We keep hoping you'll  learn to go down them, and to pay attention to them, but that hasn't clicked yet.

I'm starting to think you're saying things.  Dad seems to consistently get assigned "Dada" and I seem to consistently get assigned "Mama".  It may just be wishful thinking, but you at least seem to be trying to assign words to things.

You have definitely developed opinions on food this month.  You simply must feed yourself, and if you even catch sight of a strawberry, watermelon or popsicle you go nuts.  We have now introduced pretty much all foods to you, including the allergens (peanut butter, strawberries, eggs).  But, you still have NO teeth.  Seriously!  You are eating just about everything we eat, but yet you have no teeth.  In some sense maybe this is good, because you work at your food more before swallowing.  Dr. Google tells me we're still in the range of normal, but I have an irrational fear you have no teeth at all under those gums.

You are much more pensive than your sister was.  You will actually sit and work at a toy to try to figure it out.  You love putting objects inside other objects and carrying them around.  You are starting to develop an interest in books, especially since discovering that if you bring one to me I will read it to you.  Your attention span for sitting and listening is usually only about 20 seconds, but you gotta start somewhere.

This past month has been beautiful, so we've spent a lot of time outside.  Which means you've spent a lot of time as a complete dirtball.  You discovered that playing with dirt is a blast, as is sticking rocks in your mouth.  Everything still goes in the mouth.

You've been practicing walking with a walker toy.  If I got it out more often you'd probably be even closer to walking than you already are.  Although I'm in no rush for you to walk, you have certainly gotten heavy and it is getting harder and harder to haul you around.  So in that sense, it will be nice when you can walk.

Sleep has been a bit of a struggle, as you've still been waking up twice a night for a bottle.  But, you average 14 hours of sleep a night and even slept 15.5 one night.  So somehow that seems kind of reasonable.  Generally just one nap a day.  But the past week-and-a-half you've started going to bed later than your usual 6 p.m. and waking earlier than your usual 8 a.m. so I've started think about night weaning.  I'm getting tired by the change in schedule so perhaps it's time to break you of this habit (which your pediatrician told me to break you of 5 months ago... oy...)

You are quite possibly the most joyous child I've ever met.  Your sister was awfully joyous, too, but you just seem to have grins busting out of you.  Like you can't contain them and they just pop out and knock you over.  I love this about you.  You have become such a part of this family.  You adore your sister and your Dad, and love to get in on the wrestling matches.  You fill out this family in a way I never expected and make it feel more complete than it ever did before.  I look forward to getting to know you better, and even sometimes find myself looking forward to Threenager Greta.  Hard as that is to believe.
It was incredibly hard to get photos this month.  This was my favorite, and I was bummed that it was a bit blurry.  This has become a much beloved game: knock over the blocks before Mom intervenes.

















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