11 Month Update

Ellie is 11 months old now and in the spirit of keeping up with her "vitals" (haha), I thought I should post.

She is cutting two more teeth, the other front one and one beside it. This will bring her total to six. She is eating only "real people" food and her bottles -- as opposed to jars of baby food. She has discovered two foods that she absolutely does not like and will spit back at you: green beans and asparagus. She's had a little bit of cake at birthday parties and she really likes cake. All the more reason not to let her have any. I don't want her to get to accustomed to eating sugar.

She babbles constantly. She was saying several things clearly, but she seemed to revert a bit on that front and now says, "MaMUM!" (mama) pretty much exclusively. She babbles, "dadadada" and "babababa" but she doesn't seem to have a clear understanding of those words. I am still almost certain she says, "Kitty" and "Kitty Cat". She has a clear LOVE of cats, and I think we can all agree that she says, "Meow" to the cat. *smile* We are trying (all three of us) to teach her some signs. We are concentrating on "Eat" "Drink" "More" and "All Done". She stares at us like we are crazy, but I think soon she'll pick up on it and maybe it will help her with her frustration while eating when she thinks we don't understand what she wants.

She crawls like a speed demon, picks up everything on the floor and *POPS* it into her mouth. She cruises along the furniture, my legs and any other upright object. She has started to walk a little bit behind her walker, but I don't think we are really close to walking yet. She just doesn't seem to have the confidence down. And that's fine -- in her own time.

She is sleeping much better than before -- usually only waking once a night for a bottle. She is typically to sleep between 8:30 and 9:00, takes a bottle somewhere between 1:30 - 3:30 and then sleeps until 6 or 6:30. She naps between 9 - 9:45 and then naps again for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours in the afternoon. She takes about three or four 8 ounce bottles a day.

We are beginning to prepare for the first birthday party. If I felt just a wee bit better, I might be more excited about it. I'm sure I'll be excited soon enough.

I think, considering her rough start and her prematurity (of two months), she is doing exceptionally well. She is the youngest of all her "close friends" (ha -- Caleb and Adalynn) and is the youngest (after age adjustment) of all the kids who recently came home from Kyrgyzstan, but she is keeping up pretty well with her peers.

She is, overall, a smiling, happy baby. She is developing some bad temper tantrums, and we are trying to be firm in telling her that it's just not allowed and to stop. There is screaming, hand slinging, kicking and the works. Lord, help us all when she turns two.