Eleven months!

Little lady is eleven months old! I can't believe it. 2012 has been super busy so far - blogging has sadly fallen to the wayside. I've had 2011-in-review post started for weeks, but haven't managed to finish it, and now that it's mid-January, it feels kind of lame to post. So that probably won't happen.

These monthly photos are getting harder to take, because V will not sit still. She started walking right after she hit eleven months and has been wobbling around like a drunken sailor ever since. The photo below is a good illustration of what she's like these days. Yikes.

10.5 Months

The Noodle is now 10.5 months old, we missed a few weeks there :) Her newest skill, advancing week by week, is standing/walking/creeping. She will walk holding one hand on me or Anna and she'll race full speed if she's holding two hands. V is also becoming more of a blabbermouth with more syllables and different sounds strung together. We'll have a post on her first Xmas and how much fun she had with wrapping paper and other forms of packaging.

Happy Holidays!

month nine!

Uh oh. I'm writing V's nine month post now, over two weeks late! The holidays have always been a busy season for us work-wise, and throw in an active baby (seriously, active! I couldn't get a good shot of her on the chair, because she kept wanting to launch herself off) on top of that and I don't have much down time these days.

Eight-to-nine was a fun month of discovering that V is actually much more aware of what is going on around her than I ever thought. I'm constantly amazed that she understands actual words (though, just a few of them - let's not get carried away, now). She can clap when requested, as well as hi-five, give a big slobbery kiss (gross AND yum!), and sign for milk. It's pretty exciting that we are starting to be able to communicate - bits and pieces here and there - and I can't wait to hear what's going on in her head.

People sometimes ask me what her personality is like. The question kind of throws me off, because I feel like I should have a definitive answer, and I don't. It's still slowly becoming apparent - kind of like a polaroid picture as it develops, or a painting that is slowly taking shape. I'm only seeing hints of who she is, but she definitely tends towards bubbly (she's almost always happy), super expressive, she loves to share (I am constantly having half eaten bananas and apples shoved in my face), energetic (always in motion, which makes for a very tired mama - our nanny calls her the energizer baby), and a little bananas (see second 40 of the video below where she's going nuts on the couch).






Boxes are always great entertainment. As are shoes (unworn, not to worry).





V loves playing hide and seek.




Another favorite activity - removing all of the books from the bookshelf. One at a time, thump, thump, thump. I need to get her a pair of steel-toed boots.

Eight Months!

Eight months. I can't believe it. While last month V learned how to crawl like a maniac, this month she passed a few emotional milestones. Firstly, she says Mama and means me when she says it, which is awesome. She's been babbling for a while now, saying mama, baba, dada and so on and so forth, but over the last few weeks, she looks in my direction or will make a beeline for me when she says Mama. I heart that milestone.

She also started clapping recently. While we were flying to New Orleans last week, we were bored in the airport and I was videotaping her, and asked her to clap. Much to my surprise, she obliged. I figured it was a fluke, but I asked her to do it again while we were driving around NOLA, and she obliged again. This is maybe the most exciting milestone to date - knowing that she understands a word and has associated an action with it. Needless to say, all I do now is ask her to clap. So, she's mastered the clap, but what she hasn't mastered is timing - she claps while crying, getting her diaper changed...all clapping, all the time!

One other big change this month - we also hired someone to watch V on a part-time basis - 15 hours a week. So far it is amazing. It's so great to have some solid time to devote to work, and I feel like having the sitter makes the time I spend with V better, too, because I don't have one eye on her and one eye on the computer. The first few days with the sitter were kind of tough, mainly because I'm working from home, too, and V could see me and wanted to hang out, and couldn't understand that I wasn't available. Over the last few weeks, though, she's warmed up nicely to our sitter, and no longer seems to care much that I'm there anymore (ouch). We're still ironing out the kinks, but I think that having someone to help watch V during the week is going to make a huge difference for my work/life balance, and I feel lucky that we found someone so great.






Maybe I should start a series of camouflaged baby pictures.



Blue Steel, by Vera. And, again.






Trying to climb the elephant.



Showing her apple toy who is boss.




Bored in New Orleans.



Serious compositions going on with her new piano.



V's adorable hat, handmade by her favorite aunt! Olé!

seven months

This post is rather late, being that V turned 7 months on September 5th. Posting has been sparse because we've been so consumed with moving into the new apartment. We're loving the extra space - I feel so lucky to have it. We've pretty much unpacked and are now just letting the apartment percolate and getting a feel for how we want to decorate it. More on that later, I suppose. In the meantime, I digress - V is seven months old!

I would say that as far as months go, six to seven brought us the biggest developmental changes. She went from barely being able to crawl, to being a full-fledged troublemaker who does a mean ogreish trot across our living room floor. She can pull herself up to standing using furniture, and will use any available surface to cruise along sideways. She can crawl up a stair now (just one, so far). I no longer have to worry about her falling backwards while sitting. She is much more vocal about what she wants (and there is nothing more awesome than seeing her barrel across the floor towards you because she wants to hang out). It is pretty much impossible to get anything work-related done these days, because she's so active.

We've been hanging out with a few babies here and there, and it's been fun to see V respond to them. Mostly they just play side by side, but she definitely finds her kind way funnier than adults. She is also totally into pulling hair and gnawing on things, so I have to watch her like a hawk when she's with other kids. (How do you teach a baby to be gentle??? Tips are appreciated!)

Oh, that's the other thing - she's gotten two teeth! They're still just coming up, but it's so strange not to see her gummy smile anymore. I miss it. She's not such a wee baby anymore.




This was in the old apartment, before she could really pull herself up to stand. We got out of our old place just in time. It would have been a disaster if she'd been mobile in that apartment.



Hmm. I'm pretty sure this isn't how you're supposed to use the playmat.



Our old apartment - I feel sad and nostalgic looking at this picture. Even though it's so great to have more space, our old apartment was my home for seven years. This was while we were in the midst of packing - V was making it near impossible, so I caved and did what I swore I'd never do - used the TV to babysit her for a little while. I started off with Spongebob, but couldn't stand it after a while and switched it over to some old school Pink Panther. It's really kind of disturbing how captivated V is by the TV. She is her mama and papa's child.



Our makeshift playpen when we first moved in. It didn't take her long to start trying to crawl over the suitcases and out into the apartment.




Using the Bumbo as her walker.





See? Captivated by the TV. Didn't even notice that there was an object on her head.






Getting ready to play some Mario Kart.



(Not) watching her pops skateboard at the museum.