Ponder This: 11 Months

One month? Are we REALLY only one month away from my baby's 1st birthday?? It truly feels like just yesterday that I was coming home with my little girl, and here we are getting ready to celebrate her birthday. Am I going to feel like this with every birthday? Josh's sister and a friend from church have had babies this month and it has really made me reflect on Samantha's itty bitty days. Clearly we aren't there anymore. While I love each month more than the previous month, snuggling a newborn and remembering all those firsts make me wish at times that I could time-travel back for a day or two just to revisit my own newborn. But that's enough living in the past. This is what my BIG ELEVEN MONTH OLD has been up to this month, (which is still technically the past too...):

-She FINALLY got back to her normal sleep habits. It took almost a full month for her to go down at night without a fit. But praise the Lord she's back to being my good sleeper... for now at least (knock on wood).
-Lilly "bite." Samantha is constantly messing with our dog Lilly, and Lilly is absolutely not a fan of Samantha (sadly). One day, Lilly tried to make it absolutely clear that she wanted nothing to do with Samantha's games and she barked in her face and slightly bit her. It was more of her tooth scratching S than a true bite... She didn't learn her lesson ; )
-Helping around the house. She is now my little "helper" who likes to mimic some of my cleaning. She will get a tissue or washcloth and "clean" the coffee table or bathtub. She also hands me clothes from the laundry basket to put in the washing machine. It's precious! It takes 5x as long, but is still precious : )

-She is now completely aware of when Josh leaves in the morning and when he comes home. Some days she will crawl toward the door after he leaves and sit there for a moment. EVERY day she crawls to the door when she hears him coming home with a huge smile on her face. She loves her Daddy!

-One day I had to go to Petsmart to get dog food and I took S with me. It happened to be pet adoption day, so we walked around the store looking at all the dogs and cats, as well as the fish, birds, hamsters, etc. who are there daily. It might as well have been a zoo. She loved it!
-She learned a new word this month. Along with her "mama" (usually shortened now to just "ma") and "adda" (dadda), she can now say "doh" (dog). And she has even generalized it to different dog toys and our Lilly. She has also started producing an /s/ approximation. She's a genius ; )
-One "doh" she has fallen particularly in love with is her friend Scout. She will pull him around behind her by his ear anywhere she goes. She gets mad at him for being heavy sometimes ; ) She also takes him into her "fort" regularly (under the jumperoo) and just sits there with him.

-Waving. She will wave at us, strangers, animals, shadows, toys... you name it! She waves at everyone and everything. She understands the terms "hi, bye-bye, night-night" and will start waving when she hears these.

-Clapping her hands. I know many babies who did this much sooner than S, but it's not something I've ever worked on with her before. One night we were just sitting in the living room and she did it! The girl hasn't stopped since...

-MESSES! Not only does the girl help with cleaning, she produces quite the mess, too. I swear she can destroy an entire room in 3 minutes or less. Last week I was reorganizing her closet for about five minutes and she managed to remove every piece from all of her puzzles, empty a bag of hangers one-by-one, pull out nearly all of her shoes from a drawer one-by-one, TRY to pull out all her 6-month clothes in a box in the closet, and then start pulling on my leg to tell me she was bored. And that's just a typical event around here!
-Becoming a picky eater... Samantha has been an eating machine since we started solids and would eat anything and everything I gave her. The past few months, not only has she basically refused all pureed food, but now she's starting to turn down a lot of her veggies. I'm having to get creative by pureeing kale into her pancake mix, putting broccoli in broc-rice puffs, only making fresh green beans sauteed in a garlic sauce. Do you notice a trend here? Momma has a lot more work! I guess I deserve it for the torture I put my parents through each and every night at dinner for years. Sorry Mom and Dad!
-Drinking from a sippy cup. I finally found a sippy cup she can manage. It's Nuk brand with a flexible spout. It's more like a bottle nipple. Unfortunately, I always have to put at least a tiny bit of apple juice in with her water for her to drink it. Otherwise she just plays with it and crawls around with it.

-Little one is REALLY getting into TV now. I don't let her watch it much. Most days it's not on when she's around at all. But on days when I need her distracted, I'll throw on some Disney channel or one of her DVDs and she will crawl right over, pull herself up and stare for about 5 minutes. Isn't there some saying about watching TV this close??? Luckily she will sit back down and play after a while, just glancing back and forth from her activity and the show.

-She's getting better and better at walking. She still hasn't attempted any steps independently, but she can cruise around with her walker, holding on to furniture, or holding on to us.

This was also during her 2-day phase when she found this paci and would actually suck on it some. No more than about 2 minutes at a time, but actual sucking, not just chewing. Then she ditched it again.

-Samantha has really started using her hands together now. She will use them to get snacks out of her snack bowl, try to put her Fisher Price Little People on their little wagon, or stack her stacking cups IN ORDER (she fixes it when she notices they don't fit right). She also gets SUPER frustrated at her fine motor limitations. If she can't fit her triangle piece in her shape sorter, get a puzzle piece back in it's slot, or put those dang Little People on their wagon, she let's me know she's mad so I can do it. That being said, she's still her Momma's daughter and doesn't usually want help.

Stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 14 oz at a dr appt this month. She has broken the 17 lb mark!! Granted, she was fully dressed...
Height: taller???
Diapers: STILL size 2! I bought some size 3 last week just to SEE if they might fit. I'll try them soon.
Clothing: 9 months. There are still some 6 month things that fit her, but most are too short. It's crazy to me how she was wearing those clothes at 4 months and she's still fitting into some of them now. Clearly she's not my giant baby anymore!

Other Samantha cuteness: