Sunday, June 30, 2013
11 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 11 Months Smiley Girl!! I have only had one breakdown in the past couple weeks thinking about how your babyhood is almost over. You will be a toddler in just one short month. How on earth?!?
You are just the happiest baby. Even when you are tired you still give a lot of smiles. Sometimes we have to really pull one out of you, but there are moments when you just can’t seem to help yourself. We love to see your little smile. I’m not 100% sure what you weigh or how long you are now. We haven’t been to the doctor since your nine month appointment and it is really difficult to get a handle on what you weigh or how long you are at home. I figure you are somewhere around 19 or 20 lbs and you are likely around 29 inches. You don’t seem to be gaining as quickly as you used to but I think part of it is because you are always on the move. You seriously don’t stop. You are definitely not a snuggly type baby. You have to be involved in something, doing something, or exploring something. You are just so inquisitive and have to try to figure out how everything works. It is so interesting to watch you learn new things. Your new thing this month is opening and closing doors. You will sit for quite some time just opening and closing doors. You like to make it a game too. Last week you opened and closed the door with Daddy on one side and you on the other playing peekaboo for about 10 minutes. You probably would have kept doing it, but it was bath time so I made you stop.
As for nursing this past month, you were ready to drop one session so we are now down to 4 a day. There was one where you wouldn’t actually nurse and it seemed pointless for everyone involved. So, now we nurse when you get up in the morning, after each nap, and before your bedtime routine (after bath). You seem good with that. You lengthened those other nursing times and seem very content so I am confident you are still nursing enough. This is our last full month of nursing. I had a goal to make it to one year. Honestly, we could likely go for an extended period of time, but there are times when both of us seem ready to move on. What the plans are at this point are to cut one more nursing session just before your birthday. Then shortly after your birthday we will cut to two and just nurse after you get up and before bed. A few days later we will drop to one a day (before bed). Then a few days later we will try to cut that last one. I don’t think weaning you will be too difficult. I think the morning and evening sessions will be the hardest to cut for you. Hence why we are leaving them for last. We shall see how you do. We are going to go to whole milk when we wean you but you also love water. It will be nice to just give you whatever water you want instead of having to watch how much you drink so it doesn’t take tummy room away from breastmilk for you. I’m having some conflicting feelings about weaning. It might be harder for me, than it will be for you. There are times when I am ready to have my independence and body back but I really have gotten so used to the schedule and having that short amount of snuggle time with you. Since you aren’t a snuggler, that is some of the best snuggle time I get with you. We will see how long we end up keeping that final night nursing session. It could end up being longer than I planned. You still eat three times a day. We will add snacks when we begin weaning. Right now you have oatmeal or yogurt at breakfast. You are also in love with whole wheat pancakes that I made you. For lunch we still do finger foods like a fruit, some sort of grain, and sometimes cheese or peas and carrots. When you wean, we will change that up a bit as well but for now, it works. For dinner we have mostly gotten you on to what we are eating. We just serve it cut up smaller or however is best for you. You sometimes still have pureed fruit at dinner if we aren’t planning on having fruit right after we eat or if whatever fruit we have is one that I don’t want to give you yet (like citrus). My goal was to have you on mostly table food by the end of this month and we are doing really well. Sometimes you have rice or green bean casserole (that I made and froze) if we are happening to have something processed with dinner. Every now and then I am lazy and make yellow rice that has a lot of sodium or something of that nature and I don’t want you having all that salt. We have moved to more “natural” foods anyway in preparation for having you eat what we eat.
You learned to climb stairs this month. We don't have stairs in our house and no one we live near that we hang out with often does either. So, you just hadn't been privy to the stair climbing opportunities that some of your peers might be. When we were at Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric's house you tried to climb theirs. They have really steep stairs though so it was sort of tough. When we made it to the cabin in Tennessee, you decided all bets were off and any time you were even close to the stairs you would make a beeline for them and just start to climb. It only took you a couple tries and you were making it all the way to the top. We were really impressed. You didn't figure out how to come down, of course, in that short time but you definitely liked going up.
You are still a crawling maniac. Seriously, you are one of the fastest crawlers I have ever seen. You are into everything. You still pull up on everything too and love to cruise. Every now and then you will let go of whatever you are holding and stand unassisted for a second or two before either grabbing whatever you were holding again or sitting down. You haven’t wanted to stand up though unless it is on your own accord so that has been a difficult skill to help you with. You rarely want to let us stand you up. I’m waiting for the day that you let go and take off running. Everyone keeps saying it is coming soon because you act like you just want to go, but I just don’t know. You seem perfectly content with the crawling and cruising right now. I’m not worried but it will be so cool to see you start to walk. You have gotten really good at holding onto something (like the coffee table) and bending down to pick up an item then standing back up. You used to have to sit to pick stuff up off the floor but you finally got the crouching thing down. You also love to crawl or cruise around with things in your mouth still. We are convinced you hang out with Jack too much and just copy him. You love to “read” now. You will pull all the books you can reach off your shelf and sit and flip through them all. You especially like your touch one with the furry and fuzzy stuff on the pages. You just laugh at the kitty cat and dog when you get to that page. Not sure why they are so funny but you love them.
Our night time routine is pretty much the same. We give you a bath, you nurse, we read, say our prayers, sing a song and then you go to bed. You still fuss before each nap and bedtime. Still no idea why you haven’t grown out of that. You sleep through the night about 99% of the time now and you take two naps a day. We recently moved your nap times to 10:30am and 3pm. You usually nap 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours at each nap time. That varies day by day.
You have learned to wave bye bye and hi on command, often times without us having to do the gesture ourselves. You also sometimes say “bye bye” when we say it or wave. This month you also learned “so big”. When we ask you how big you are and if you are so big, you raise your arms above your head. It is ridiculously adorable. Each new skills is just cuter than the last. I remember when you learned to clap and how cute that was. Then you learned to wave. Now you do “so big” and I just can’t help but smile when you do it. You still love music and the minute we put it on you start clapping, smiling away, and bobbing up and down in your own special dance. We listen to a lot of music during the day so you seem to love it. We also sing to you in the car when you are upset and it always calms you. Still hoping that you end up loving music as much as Daddy and I do.
You still love going to the pool. We try to go a couple times a week and you love to either be held or put into your float. We learned to give you something to hold and chew on (like a teether) to keep you from trying to drink the pool water. You also still love to go out to eat. Not much has changed in the last month in either of those departments.
We took your first beach trip this month. Hard to believe it took us this long since we live about an hour and a half from a bunch of different beaches. We went with Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric to Clearwater. You weren’t 100% sure of the water (it was a bit cold) but you loved sitting with me in the very shallow waves. You also really liked playing on the blanket on the sand. I think as you get older you will love the beach since you love water so much. We will have to see how you do as you get bigger.
This month was your first vacation. I won’t write too much about it mainly because we keep a trip journal and you will be able to read that but I will say that you did amazing. We were worried because we were driving to Atlanta and then to Butler, TN. You did great in the car and slept well in a place other than your crib. You loved seeing Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric too. We were really glad we decided to take a vacation this year. We had considered not doing it but I think it worked out really well and it was so nice to get away for the first time as our little family unit.
You still just have the same 8 teeth. I say that like it is a small number of teeth but people are always amazed to see your mouth full of teeth and find out how old you are. Not sure when we might see any others but you don’t seem to be cutting any more anytime soon. You are getting more hair but you still don’t have much. It is also growing more on the sides than on the top but I know it will come in. It is starting to curl some too. No getting out of that.
How on earth have we gotten to the point that in one month you will be a year old?? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Let’s see what the next month brings…
Happy 11 months pretty girl!
Love,
Mommy
11 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 11 Months Smiley Girl!! I have only had one breakdown in the past couple weeks thinking about how your babyhood is almost over. You will be a toddler in just one short month. How on earth?!?
You are just the happiest baby. Even when you are tired you still give a lot of smiles. Sometimes we have to really pull one out of you, but there are moments when you just can’t seem to help yourself. We love to see your little smile. I’m not 100% sure what you weigh or how long you are now. We haven’t been to the doctor since your nine month appointment and it is really difficult to get a handle on what you weigh or how long you are at home. I figure you are somewhere around 19 or 20 lbs and you are likely around 29 inches. You don’t seem to be gaining as quickly as you used to but I think part of it is because you are always on the move. You seriously don’t stop. You are definitely not a snuggly type baby. You have to be involved in something, doing something, or exploring something. You are just so inquisitive and have to try to figure out how everything works. It is so interesting to watch you learn new things. Your new thing this month is opening and closing doors. You will sit for quite some time just opening and closing doors. You like to make it a game too. Last week you opened and closed the door with Daddy on one side and you on the other playing peekaboo for about 10 minutes. You probably would have kept doing it, but it was bath time so I made you stop.
 | |
| Baby sleepytime snuggles. You fell asleep nursing at the Gerogia Aquarium. |
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| Smiley girl |
As for nursing this past month, you were ready to drop one session so we are now down to 4 a day. There was one where you wouldn’t actually nurse and it seemed pointless for everyone involved. So, now we nurse when you get up in the morning, after each nap, and before your bedtime routine (after bath). You seem good with that. You lengthened those other nursing times and seem very content so I am confident you are still nursing enough. This is our last full month of nursing. I had a goal to make it to one year. Honestly, we could likely go for an extended period of time, but there are times when both of us seem ready to move on. What the plans are at this point are to cut one more nursing session just before your birthday. Then shortly after your birthday we will cut to two and just nurse after you get up and before bed. A few days later we will drop to one a day (before bed). Then a few days later we will try to cut that last one. I don’t think weaning you will be too difficult. I think the morning and evening sessions will be the hardest to cut for you. Hence why we are leaving them for last. We shall see how you do. We are going to go to whole milk when we wean you but you also love water. It will be nice to just give you whatever water you want instead of having to watch how much you drink so it doesn’t take tummy room away from breastmilk for you. I’m having some conflicting feelings about weaning. It might be harder for me, than it will be for you. There are times when I am ready to have my independence and body back but I really have gotten so used to the schedule and having that short amount of snuggle time with you. Since you aren’t a snuggler, that is some of the best snuggle time I get with you. We will see how long we end up keeping that final night nursing session. It could end up being longer than I planned. You still eat three times a day. We will add snacks when we begin weaning. Right now you have oatmeal or yogurt at breakfast. You are also in love with whole wheat pancakes that I made you. For lunch we still do finger foods like a fruit, some sort of grain, and sometimes cheese or peas and carrots. When you wean, we will change that up a bit as well but for now, it works. For dinner we have mostly gotten you on to what we are eating. We just serve it cut up smaller or however is best for you. You sometimes still have pureed fruit at dinner if we aren’t planning on having fruit right after we eat or if whatever fruit we have is one that I don’t want to give you yet (like citrus). My goal was to have you on mostly table food by the end of this month and we are doing really well. Sometimes you have rice or green bean casserole (that I made and froze) if we are happening to have something processed with dinner. Every now and then I am lazy and make yellow rice that has a lot of sodium or something of that nature and I don’t want you having all that salt. We have moved to more “natural” foods anyway in preparation for having you eat what we eat.
 |
| Spaghetti is definitely a favorite. |
You learned to climb stairs this month. We don't have stairs in our house and no one we live near that we hang out with often does either. So, you just hadn't been privy to the stair climbing opportunities that some of your peers might be. When we were at Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric's house you tried to climb theirs. They have really steep stairs though so it was sort of tough. When we made it to the cabin in Tennessee, you decided all bets were off and any time you were even close to the stairs you would make a beeline for them and just start to climb. It only took you a couple tries and you were making it all the way to the top. We were really impressed. You didn't figure out how to come down, of course, in that short time but you definitely liked going up.
You are still a crawling maniac. Seriously, you are one of the fastest crawlers I have ever seen. You are into everything. You still pull up on everything too and love to cruise. Every now and then you will let go of whatever you are holding and stand unassisted for a second or two before either grabbing whatever you were holding again or sitting down. You haven’t wanted to stand up though unless it is on your own accord so that has been a difficult skill to help you with. You rarely want to let us stand you up. I’m waiting for the day that you let go and take off running. Everyone keeps saying it is coming soon because you act like you just want to go, but I just don’t know. You seem perfectly content with the crawling and cruising right now. I’m not worried but it will be so cool to see you start to walk. You have gotten really good at holding onto something (like the coffee table) and bending down to pick up an item then standing back up. You used to have to sit to pick stuff up off the floor but you finally got the crouching thing down. You also love to crawl or cruise around with things in your mouth still. We are convinced you hang out with Jack too much and just copy him. You love to “read” now. You will pull all the books you can reach off your shelf and sit and flip through them all. You especially like your touch one with the furry and fuzzy stuff on the pages. You just laugh at the kitty cat and dog when you get to that page. Not sure why they are so funny but you love them.
 |
| Using your mouth as a third hand |
Our night time routine is pretty much the same. We give you a bath, you nurse, we read, say our prayers, sing a song and then you go to bed. You still fuss before each nap and bedtime. Still no idea why you haven’t grown out of that. You sleep through the night about 99% of the time now and you take two naps a day. We recently moved your nap times to 10:30am and 3pm. You usually nap 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours at each nap time. That varies day by day.
You have learned to wave bye bye and hi on command, often times without us having to do the gesture ourselves. You also sometimes say “bye bye” when we say it or wave. This month you also learned “so big”. When we ask you how big you are and if you are so big, you raise your arms above your head. It is ridiculously adorable. Each new skills is just cuter than the last. I remember when you learned to clap and how cute that was. Then you learned to wave. Now you do “so big” and I just can’t help but smile when you do it. You still love music and the minute we put it on you start clapping, smiling away, and bobbing up and down in your own special dance. We listen to a lot of music during the day so you seem to love it. We also sing to you in the car when you are upset and it always calms you. Still hoping that you end up loving music as much as Daddy and I do.
You still love going to the pool. We try to go a couple times a week and you love to either be held or put into your float. We learned to give you something to hold and chew on (like a teether) to keep you from trying to drink the pool water. You also still love to go out to eat. Not much has changed in the last month in either of those departments.
We took your first beach trip this month. Hard to believe it took us this long since we live about an hour and a half from a bunch of different beaches. We went with Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric to Clearwater. You weren’t 100% sure of the water (it was a bit cold) but you loved sitting with me in the very shallow waves. You also really liked playing on the blanket on the sand. I think as you get older you will love the beach since you love water so much. We will have to see how you do as you get bigger.
 |
| Playing with your toys on the sand |
 |
| First beach trip |
This month was your first vacation. I won’t write too much about it mainly because we keep a trip journal and you will be able to read that but I will say that you did amazing. We were worried because we were driving to Atlanta and then to Butler, TN. You did great in the car and slept well in a place other than your crib. You loved seeing Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric too. We were really glad we decided to take a vacation this year. We had considered not doing it but I think it worked out really well and it was so nice to get away for the first time as our little family unit.
 |
| In Tennessee for vacation |
You still just have the same 8 teeth. I say that like it is a small number of teeth but people are always amazed to see your mouth full of teeth and find out how old you are. Not sure when we might see any others but you don’t seem to be cutting any more anytime soon. You are getting more hair but you still don’t have much. It is also growing more on the sides than on the top but I know it will come in. It is starting to curl some too. No getting out of that.
How on earth have we gotten to the point that in one month you will be a year old?? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Let’s see what the next month brings…
Happy 11 months pretty girl!
Love,
Mommy
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