I'm gonna be honest, Elaine's 11th month of life was not fun. Yes, it included Christmas, which was great. But the antics following New Years were not fun at all. A horrible illness knocked both Jeremy and Elaine down for the count. Jeremy ended up having a sinus infection after 10 days of cold/flu symptoms and Elaine had her first trip to the ER with a high fever. They concluded she had croup and gave her some steroids. Two days later we went to her pediatrician and she found Elaine's lungs sounded very bad and her oxygen levels were low. So we ended up staying the night at a hospital so they could monitor her. Elaine ended up having to sleep with oxygen for a week. I had just gotten home from a trip to NYC by myself that was supposed to have been with Winnie and Picky but Picky was sick and Winnie was in CA because of Pop's condition. Pops passed away in the midst of all the illness hullabaloo. Oh, Brother... what a month!
Luckily, everyone has recovered beautifully and today, on Elaine's 11th month birthday, we've had the added bonus of a snow-day! A couple days ago the weather reported this system might carry 1 - 3 inches of snow. Well, that turned into 8 and we had a lot of fun bundling up and introducing Elaine to the fun of playing in the snow! She didn't quite know what to make of it while she was out IN it but watching through the window, she whispered lots of "wows!"
Snow Bunny
Which brings me to her first developmental update, talking. E's babbling had turned into distinguishable words. "Mama, Dada, up, uh-h, wow, all done" are all in her verbal vocabulary. She also signs 'more' and 'milk' occasionally. She mimics what we say a lot as well in terms of repeating our syllables and using our same inflection. For example, I say, "You want the bottle?" She says, "Baba?" I say, "Bottle?" She repeats, "Baba?" Its pretty amazing to watch a person develop linguistically!
As for her gross motor skills, she is officially cruising all over the place! She has no trouble crawling across the house on her own to meet me in another room or explore something she finds intriguing. She pulls herself up very easily and has actually started to practice free standing. Her record is 7 seconds without holding on to anything. She also uses her little walker to walk all over the place. It really is going to be only a few weeks before she's walking around. Very exciting!
First Steps With the Walker
Some of her favorite activities these days are 'taking things out, putting things in' and goofing off with Daddy. Its hard to catch her working independently because once she sees the camera, she wants to see what's on the screen. Example:
Lemme See!
Laughing & Flailing with Daddy (has its consequences)
As for eating, her favorite foods include frozen Indian wraps (chicken vindaloo, veggie samosas, chicken tikka masala), blueberries, bananas, cereals, cheese, mac n cheese, and pretty much any 'suck pack' that has some kind of fruit in it. I don't know what the formal name is for these products, but they're basically baby food in suckable pouches that enable the child to feed themselves. Wonderful!
Sleeping has been a moving target. She's still a great sleeper in general. My biggest complaint is her naps continue to be on the short side, 45 - 60 minutes. And she's getting more attached to the boob lately... which will be interesting since I'm planning on weening her from breastfeeding in a few months. We'll see how that goes!
Of course overall she is still a model child, so full of smiles and silliness. She makes Jeremy and I laugh everyday and squeeze her with love. She is just SO fun and adorable. She's really exploring the world now and its just making me be in awe of her all the more!
We DID have a great New Years! We went to the Millibo Art Theater family show with my friend Jim Jackson's "Mr. Guffaw" show then had a few drinks with friends before heading home to get E in bed. We were tuckered out by 9pm. Ahhh, the high life!
