So as I'm actually writing this, Cate is a full 10 days past turning 11 months old. But I took the pictures on Monday, so at least I was only 6 days late on those...
As I've done every month for the past 10 months, I'll now proceed to bore you with the minutiae of Cate's life so I can keep a record.
She's growing and changing so fast, it's hard to keep up with when things happen (and her baby calendar shows it - I'm TERRIBLE at updating that thing). But grow and change she has.
On the sleeping front, we may have finally come out of the other side of the horrific regression that happened after our visit home in March. We were having to deal with 2-3 wake ups a night, more often than every three hours, even. But we seem to be back down to only one really middle of the night wake up. And Cate sleeps in her pack n play (still in our room, but we're good with that) pretty much all night now. We had a big stretch there with her in the bed with us and I was anxious to get her back to her own space. Well, mostly my back was anxious to get her back to her own space - I don't sleep comfortably when I'm spending most of the night being shoved off the bed by a tiny human! But I can deal with waking sometime around 3 in the morning for quick nursing, and then again at about 6:30 or so. It'll get even easier to deal with that again next week when I actually have to be UP at 6:30 again. That's more than manageable!
Next up... food. Good lord this child can eat. She still only gets solid food twice a day, sometimes only once (I'm a lazy mom), so she makes it count when she gets it. She'll eat pretty much anything that we put in front of her. Our only problem is making sure she doesn't just squirrel it all away in her cheeks in her hurry to get it ALL before, well, I'm not entirely sure what she thinks is going to happen to it if she doesn't eat it all right away. A chant of "Frank the Tank, Frank the Tank" is heard on many a night at dinner time and, on more than a few occasions, we've had to dig through the fridge or cabinets to find something else to feed her. Frozen peas are a good thing to have around for that! She pretty much eats everything we eat, though, so it makes it easy to just keep putting food in front of her. The only exception to that is that I've held off on most grains, so pasta night is tough. In addition to her solid foods, she's still nursing a bunch of times per day, though she's gotten so efficient, it's generally only for about 4 minutes at a time every 2.5-3.5 hours. Every nursing baby should be this easy so every mom wouldn't mind nursing. Both my girls have made it easy to be a nursing mom and I'm grateful for that! I can't believe we're only a month away from not having to worry so much about breastmilk being her primary nutrition. Mostly because that means I'll have to actually remember to give her other meals!
Now the fun stuff - walking and talking. Well, not technically walking as of 11 months (she's since started), but she was definitely a lot more mobile from 10-11 months than the month before. She's a fast crawler, which can be dangerous since she can go from a safe place in the middle of the living room to bothering Michaela in the bathroom in about 3 seconds. It's so funny to watch her "take off" crawling. She almost always sits for a few minutes, rocking back and forth excitedly, until she works up the inertia to get to her hands and knees and get going. She's cruising on the furniture, standing up by herself, and ready to get moving. (Again, she did actually walk by the time I'm getting around to writing this - but she hadn't yet when she was still only 10 months!) Cate also graced me with her first word just before she turned 11 months. It was absolutely hilarious. She finished nursing one morning, sat up, clapped her hands, and said, "Yaaaayyyy!" She added "Dada" to her repertoire on Father's Day weekend, standing at the back door watching him mow the lawn, yelling "Dada! Dada!" She likes to do her talking in style.
Clapping is a favorite past time and Cate will do it every single time someone says, "Yay!" I think she should be able to play patty-cake and a few other things, but I've been really bad about doing that stuff with her compared to how I was with Michaela. Poor second kid. But she's growing well and is very healthy and very happy. I could sit all day and just watch and listen as Michaela makes Cate laugh about the most random things in the world. Cate is enamored with Michaela and just gets more-so the older she gets. Hopefully the sibling love will last. Check back with me on that in about a year or so. Cate also likes to wave, signs "milk" very enthusiastically, sort of signs "all done," and drums on anything and everything. She's also becoming a little mimic and will do all kinds of things that she watches us do first, like sticking her tongue out, clapping, drumming, and she even signed "please" on me one night (The sign for "please" is to rub your hand in a circle on your chest. I did it and then she rubbed her hand in a circle on MY chest.). She's a pretty smart little girl, leading me to believe I'm in more trouble than I already was with the big one. I'll be out-smarted by the time they're each 5, I think.
Oh, and one last totally random thing. In an act of the most cuteness known to man, she will hold a baby doll and rock it like a baby. She even does a little tooshy patting and kissing. Though, her "kissing" is more like trying to chew the poor doll's face off. Oh, goodness, I almost forgot! She also gives kisses now! It's the sweetest thing in the world! She also does "noggins." Anyone familiar with "Finding Nemo" knows that Crush and Squirt knock heads together and say "Noggin!" instead of a hug or a high five. I've been doing it with Cate for months, but she now will initiate herself, leaning in to bump noggins. I love it.
Onto the pictures. If I thought last month was hard with Jason's help, this month was terrible with no help! The first shot is a normal one and the second one shows you how well it worked trying to get her to sit down.
