Anna's Eleventh Month

I begin this post with a big, deep sigh.

 First because our baby girl is so nearly not a baby anymore...

...and second because I worked on this post a little at a time for an entire month, and Blogger deleted all of it for me at around 9pm tonight and I can find no way of getting it back.

Sigh.  Ok, pity party over. - Also, this is how this post originally started, with a big sigh, but it was only a wistful momma sigh, not an angry "technology is sucking my soul out" sigh.  Back to the good stuff!

Anna has successfully stood without holding onto anything a couple of times this month.

She doesn't know it when she does it, though, so at least we'll get to keep our baby as a baby for little while longer.

(But I am honestly really looking forward to having a toddler, especially a toddler who can talk.)

She slept all the way through the night several times this month (or at least allowed her Mama to sleep all the way through the night).

It's not consistent, but it's often enough that I'm calling it "Anna started sleeping through the night this month."

 She loves to bang on her drum with this little green, wooden screwdriver.

Dave dances while she plays, which she gets a big kick out of.  She likes to "play" that decorative bowl, too, since it makes a nice gong kind of sound.  Observe (maybe turn your sound off):

She hits the bowl with the screwdriver...she hits the floor...she hits the bag inside the bowl...she chews on the screwdriver and inspects it.  She hits the bowl with her hand...she picks up and chews on the bowl.  It's just like watching a researcher methodically testing out A, then B, then C, then reexamining B and combining it with A, and so on and on and on.

Gotta share some other favorites from play time:

 I put this little plastic tiara on her gorilla puppet, and then she spent the next ten minutes off-and-on trying to put it on herself.

 And this monkey, a gift from Grandma...

 

 Anna loves to snuggle him.  Whenever she sees him across the room, she calls out kitty! with great delight and goes and buries her face in his neck.

  We got a baby swing this month!

(Also, it was still pretty cold at the beginning of this month.)

 She loves it, but I think she gets bored with it pretty quickly.  It's nice that we can put her in backward so she can watch the cars go past.

We've been working on "No-no."

 I'd say it's going.  I'd say we've got a child with a mind of her own.

 I'd bet she's going to grow into a confident young adult who can stand up for herself, but in the meantime...

 I can't seem to convince her that she's actually not an adult yet.

 It's better than it was last month, and she gets the concept for sure.  So now as she's crawling and reaching for the forbidden thing (coffee cup, phone, computer), she's shaking her head NO and smiling back at me. 

I dunno.  I guess the plan is to be consistent and not get mad.

She does do "head down" now.  I have to push her head onto my shoulder initially, but then she keeps it there.  Diaper changes are less epic, but still a battle.  She seems determined to flip herself off the changing table.

***You know, when it comes to being a mom, I definitely feel like I'm stranded on Mars with about one tenth of the knowledge required for survival, so I keep making up a bunch of stuff and stepping back and going, "Yep, this strategy will definitely last me a few good years.  Unless, of course, it's totally wrong and then oh well I guess we'll all die in a few weeks."***

 Anna has cut three more teeth this month: both lateral incisors (I think), and her right front top.  They're all still nubbins even though she cut the right lateral almost a full month ago.

 She loves to eat.

 She enthusiastically tries anything we hand to her.  The biggest, longest lasting hit so far is cheese, followed closely by watermelon.  And Brazilian cheese bread.

 Man, if Anna discovers that there is Brazilian cheese bread to be had, the world comes to a halt as she takes whatever she had been chewing out of her mouth while staring at me with big, anxious eyes and making frantic hand gestures and long, guttural grunts to let me know that she needs that right now.  But if I take a moment to blow on the hot bread, she thinks that's pretty funny, and sometimes she'll imitate the blowing.

She solidly has Dadda (everything is dadda), kitty (possibly her first word), ball (sounds like "doll"), bath, and Hi! complete with a little backward wave.

I love the way she calls out "Dadda"...she has the whole package, the right volume, the right speaking tune, the right tone.  They'll call to each other across the house, "Dadda!", "Anna!", back and forth for several minutes at a time.

Today she seemed to be practicing Thank you as she and I passed a toy back and forth.  The tone was correct, and the sounds were similar, so I'm gonna say she has thank you as of today, too.

Ah, this little nugget...

...this little child of ours is the cutest, funniest, smartest little baby in the whole world.  I don't know why I get to be her mamma, but I am every day grateful for her, every day amazed by her, every day delighted in her.  Anna, you are the sunrise in my day.  Your daddy and I love you so much, little bear.  So much.