Raven is now less than a month away from being a year old, a fact that seems at odds with the motherly part of my brain that insists that she’s still my tiny baby, only a few months old really.
But eleven months sure is fun (even if it seems like my girl has a streak of mischief in her that could only have come from her dad…).
- Cut 2-3 more teeth on the top (it’s hard to tell since she won’t really let us get a good look)
- Can stand several seconds on her own, perfectly balanced (and then lowers herself gently to the floor when she realizes she’s not holding on to anything)
- Can feed herself finger food with relative ease
- Says “duh” for “done” and “nana” for banana (we think, anyway…sometimes she says “duh” and then accepts more bites, so who knows if she really comprehends it yet…)
Physical Appearance
Although she’s always had a bit of fuzz on her head since birth, her hair is REALLY coming in now (hence the reason why her hair’s in a mini ponytail for these pics). Matt keeps saying we probably should look into cutting it soon (esp. around her ears), but my sentimental mother heart keeps putting it off because I think the little ear wisps are adorable. Oh, and wherever we go, strangers are endlessly commenting on her big, blue eyes.
What I Love About This Stage
Even though feeding her “real” food can sometimes seem like a hassle, I really enjoy the fact that I can basically feed her almost anything now. As long as Matt gets home early enough from work, she’ll usually just eat whatever we’re eating for dinner (although we still have to feed much of it to her, but there are some things we can tear into pieces and have her feed herself). I love that she basically is up for trying everything, and she pretty much likes almost everything we’ve ever given her, which has been REALLY nice. I’m excited for the next few months when she’ll likely start showing an interest in learning how to fully feed herself.
I also love that her sense of humor is much more developed now–she laughs readily anytime Matt and I try to be silly, and she often gets herself into mischievous “games” that usually involve us trying to pull her away from somewhere we don’t want her to be (like the edge of the bed or by an outlet). Since I don’t want her to think dangerous things are games, we usually put an end to it pretty quickly, but I’ll admit to having a hard time keeping the smile off my face as she laughs gleefully when pulled away from something.
Challenges
Because she’s such a big eater (of solid foods), she has gone WAAAY down on her formula consumption, which is overall a good thing (for a lot of reasons). The problem is, she’s reluctant to drink out of anything that’s not a “grown-up” glass, so we do worry a bit about her getting dehydrated. Since sippy cups seemed to be a no-go, we bought a spillproof baby cup that’s modeled after a regular cup (but with a filter-type thing on top), and although she didn’t take to that as readily as we’d hoped, she’s made big strides in the last week with it (especially this morning).
She also has officially reached the put-everything-into-her-mouth-as-quickly-as-possible stage, which means that we’re having to constantly perform the finger swipe to dislodge whatever she’s managed to dredge up from the floor and be super vigilant about vacuuming and not leaving little bits of anything anywhere. On the bright side, it does help to give me motivation to clean house much more often…
Things I Don’t Want to Forget:
- Raven’s burgeoning sense of independence. Because she can sometimes be clingy (when I’m around, especially), I thought she’d be the kind of kid I’d need to encourage to go explore. Nope. Whenever we’re in a new place, she’ll usually take off as fast as she can with maybe only one backward glance, and she’s pretty fearless when it comes to being around new places, new people, and new experiences. Today in the library, she was laughing like a maniac as she crawled as fast as she could away from me (and then pouting a bit when I finally caught up to her).
- I know I mentioned it in the picture post a few days ago, but her obsession with socks is HILARIOUS. Luckily, she doesn’t seem so interested in mine or Matt’s socks, but her little socks are her favorite, and she giggles in triumph whenever she finds one to stuff into her mouth.
- I’m impressed with how often she tries to figure something out before moving onto something else. She’ll often observe a new toy or object with intense scrutiny before deciding what to do with it. Her favorite “tests” seem to be the “scratch” test and the “hit it against something hard” test to see what happens. And often, when she has something she’s not supposed to and hears us say her name in That Tone, she’ll drop whatever she’s holding and crawl away as fast as possible, so as not to be caught red-handed.
- Because I have no trouble (anymore) disciplining my 7th grade students and setting boundaries, I thought I’d have no trouble being stern with Raven when I needed to be. The problem I hadn’t planned on, however, was that she’s SO funny/adorable/sweet and gives me this little impish grin every time she’s caught making mischief, and more often than not, I have to turn away so she can’t see that I’m holding back laughter. (Note: When she’s in any real danger, I don’t have this problem, but when she’s doing something I’d rather her not do, that’s when we run into issues.)
- Raven regularly “reads” books when she’s playing by herself, and I want to both pump my fists in triumph and weep with joy over it.
- We got a little toy phone from one of my good friends, which we just pulled out for Raven a few weeks ago for the first time. She just loves it when I put the phone up to her ear and say “Hello!” Today, she even had a full “conversation” with me—answering my questions (with plenty of enthusiasm) and laughing at all my jokes. It was great.
- Lately, when she’s in a dress, she will “crawl” on all fours (with her legs straight) since her legs get caught in the fabric if she tries to crawl normally, and she doesn’t want to be slowed down. It’s pretty much awesome.
- Whenever we try to get her to stand up, she knows exactly what we’re up to and will sit down immediately. The only times we’ve seen if she could stand on her own have been times we’ve “tricked” her by putting on Frozen or by standing her up in the grass outside of our apartment. She has perfect control as she sits down (after standing for up to 10 seconds or so), but she just doesn’t show any inclination towards taking it any further.
(P. S. This photo shoot was insane–it took both me and Matt using all our trickery to try and get her to sit still so I could get some in-focus shots, and the 11-month sticker was basically destroyed by the end.)
Can’t believe you’re already 11 months old, Baby Girl. People really weren’t kidding when they say it goes by in what seems to be the blink of an eye.
