11 Months

Eleven months, eleven months. Where does the time go?

At eleven months, the bean has taken her first step, but is much too timid to actually take off and walk on her own. When we try to get her to walk towards us (or even to just stand on her own), she puts her arms out to the side as if to say, "Whoa mom, why'd you let go?" and very slowly eases herself down to the floor. She'll be running circles around us soon enough, but for now I'm OK with her taking her time.

The last few months, the bean had slowed down a bit with her babbling, but now her voice is back and she has a lot to say. She still has no words, at least that we can recognize, but she sometimes will slap her hand down on the table and repeat the same sound louder and I imagine that she's frustrated that we just don't understand what "Gah. GAH!!" means.

The bean is getting more and more social every day and loves to wave at every person (and inanimate object) that she sees. She loves to be out and about and is a big crankster if we try to stay around the house for a day. Not that we've been doing much of that now that the nice weather has arrived, but it means we'll have to get creative this winter.

The boy taught the bean how to give kisses and she's now a bit out of control with them. Everybody gets a kiss (or two) along with all her toys and every page of all her books, the dog, the cat, the table. Its a regular love-fest at our house.

After months and months of sleeping issues we had just resigned ourselves to the fact that we had a bean who was never tired. Somehow a switch was flipped at eleven months and the bean is finally sleepy. I would even go so far as to call her a good napper now, which feels strange to write after so long with her not napping at all. I have a few posts planned on the topic of sleep and what we did to encourage her, but I think mostly the bean just decided sleep was alright after all.

Finally, let's have a moment of silence for the Itsy Bitsy Spider. It used to be almost magic in its ability to calm the bean down and end crying, but no more. Luckily, we've discovered a replacement in the form of a little dog named B-I-N-G-O. I would have liked it to be something else (maybe something more soothing and less tiring to sing?), but the bean loves BINGO and who am I to argue?