Eleven Months

At last, a Stella update. I'm sure you've been waiting on pins and needles. The little tyke is nearly a year old and I've been thinking this week about how fast she's grown up. When we brought her home from the hospital, we had a baby. And, to me, the time we would have the baby was sort of indefinite. I mean, I didn't think about the fact that she would grow up and after a year, we wouldn't really have a baby anymore. And, you don't really notice that they're growing and developing until they've already done it, so it just seems to happen all of a sudden.

Anyway, Stella continues to grow and develop and keep us running. She is a very busy little girl and therefore, I am a very busy little mommy. Her favorite activity these days is exploring. She likes to be down on the ground where she can crawl around and check things out. She's not at all close to walking as far as I can tell. She's really good at crawling and pulling herself up to things and squatting back down. For most of this month, she's had no idea what to do if we stand her up and hold her hands and try to get her to walk along. Over the last few days, though, she's started to pick up on it and now she'll walk for a little ways if we're holding her hands. She also doesn't stand by herself at all. She always has to be holding onto something. I've noticed, though, that the amount she relies on whatever is supporting her has been diminishing, so maybe soon she'll be brave enough to let go and stand on her own.

Tooth number 5 has just popped through her gums and tooth number 6 is close behind since we can see it just under her gums. And, she seems to be teething, so she may even be working on some more. Speaking of teeth, we just started brushing her teeth. The first couple of times we brushed them, she didn't quite know what was going on. But, she caught on pretty quick and now she likes it. In fact, she's quite adorable when getting her teeth brushed.

She's also catching on to books which is pretty exciting. We've read to her since she was 2 or 3 months old because all the experts say you should. But, to be honest, I just always wondered what good it did. But, now she listens when we read instead of looking every which way and trying to crawl off our laps and she looks at the pictures and she watches us turn pages. And, sometimes she even turns the pages. Finally, she gets it!

She still loves to eat and we're always branching out with her food. The other day we were at a going away party for some friends and I was eating a chocolate chip cookie. She started making her typical commotion when she wants some, so I gave her a small piece. Well, we were chatting with other people, so I wasn't paying enough attention to her commotion for more, so she finally just reached over, grabbed a piece off my cookie, and shoved it in her mouth.

You'll also notice she has a barrette in her hair in those photos. I've figured out that if I'm sneaky enough and she doesn't ever see the barrette, then it will usually stay in her hair for a couple of hours before she finally notices it and pulls it out. This is great because she is in dire need of another haircut and we just can't do ponies everyday.

Stella is also becoming a little more independent in that she has finally started to hold her own bottle, though she's still learning to tip it back and she can now hold her own cup for a drink. Hooray!

We've made lots of changes around our house to make it Stella-proof, but the process is on-going as she gets taller and can reach more. We've tried to put things that she's okay playing with down low so she can reach them. Like the tupperware cupboard. And the remote.

Because this little girl has eagle eyes and she WILL get into anything within her reach.

It's fun to watch her figure things out. Like, when Scout crawls under the crib, she's not actually gone, she's just under the crib and maybe if you reach under there, you'll find her.

She's also starting to understand more and more words. I love it. And I'll love it even more when she can say words back. We started teaching her some simple baby signs so she could communicate her needs to us better. She seems to understand the signs when we do them and even finds them entertaining. But, she has yet to actually do one herself. But, she did just start clapping a little bit and has even just started to wave here and there. And the other day she even pointed at something that I was pointing out to her. We're so excited to see what she learns and picks up on this last month before she turns one. And we're so excited to celebrate this adorable girl's first birthday!