Lydia Elise: 10-11 Months

Lydia Elise is eleven months old! One more month until her one-year birthday. Wow. She is so sweet and such a happy little baby. So many new things this month. So much happiness that she has brought into our lives. This beautiful girl means the world to us.

As far as stats go, she still fits solidly into her nine month clothes. Her size three diapers have stopped drowning her and fit her quite nicely now. I bought her a pair of shoes (really cute white sandals), and they are size 3.

Here are some things that she has been up to this last month:

--Lydia started walking! At first it was just a little shuffle of her feet to get a little closer to something. But slowly she has worked her way up to taking 4-6 (and at most 10) steps at a time. She got really good at walking for a little while, but then I think she realized what she was doing and now she tries to walk too fast, which results in her tipping over and crawling the rest of the way about 90% of the time. But when she wants to, she can walk to pretty much anything in a room. (Especially if there is occasionally something she can grab to steady herself.)

--She finally has a tooth! Pretty soon after she turned 10 months, my mom was down and felt a little tooth starting to come in on the bottom. A day or so later you could actually see it, and now it's clear as day anytime she laughs. Her second bottom tooth broke skin about a week after the first, but hasn't come in as quickly.

--Her first word is officially Daddy. After months of no noise other than "babababa", she started saying Dadadada. At first I thought it was just a new noise, but anytime David comes home from work or even just walks into the room she starts her little chant of "Da Da Da-da", and has even evolved to "Dad" (pronounced more like "Dahd") or Dad-dy. She just loves him so much. Each night when he gets home - she gets so excited and happy. She laughs and says Dad-dad-dad over and over. At first I was a little sad, but after a brief moment of bittersweet thoughts I realized that it is only natural because there is such a strong verbal-visual connection. Because lets be honest, every night when David gets home- I am so excited and always say "Look, it's Daddy! Daddy's home!" We both just love him so much. And it is very exciting for Lydia to be starting to communicate!

--Lydia is still nursing like a champ. I'm SO so happy about it. But I think that we will also be able to transition fairly well to strictly a sippy cup when the time comes. I'm a little sad about that - but I'm just really grateful that she has been so good at nursing for so long. 

--For the first half of the month, she had super stranger danger around people that she isn't really familiar with. Like, crying even when I was holding her if there was someone there that she didn't know, especially if they talked to her or even looked at her. (This even happened with people that she did know, but wasn't SUPER familiar with.) However, she has started to chill out a bit. She still is pretty shy around people that she doesn't know well - but she has warmed up to a lot of people (mostly family) and now when she sees them she doesn't take as long to be comfortable. The funniest thing is that she has never been as bothered by big scruffy men as she is with women. When our house was full of repair people (for the fridge, plumbing, ceiling) and our yard full of landscapers, she was always super happy to see them and would try to play with them. The nice neighbor ladies? Not having it. So weird.

--She started clapping! Such a fun thing. Now if you say "Yay", she almost always will start clapping. The last time we were at David's families house, she had a roomful of adults clapping along with her. If we would stop clapping, she would look around and start clapping. (And you know you can't resist clapping along when a baby is clapping.) If one person wasn't clapping, she would look at them until they would start clapping. She is really just such a happy baby.

--This month we left her for the longest we ever have before when we attended the Bridal Fair for Red Ladder Design - almost ten hours. It was stressful (for us) but she did really good.

--Got a little purple bunny from my mom for easter and she loves it. She carries it around and loves on it all the time. I love watching her carry it by it's ear or tail. (It reminds me of my very favorite stuffed animal from my childhood, Bunny Sue. I may or may not have taken her to college with me, and she may or may not be sitting in our bedroom right now. Ha.)

--Raises both hands above her head like she is cheering about something. (Usually accompanied with clapping.)

--Put one of her rings on her little ring stacker. We were so proud. Just an example of how she is starting to 'get' that things belong places and that they can fit places.

--Along with this, she figured out how to pull things out/down. She spends much of her time each day pulling the laundry out of the washer or dryer(as I do laundry), pulling the DVD's off their shelf, and pulling things out of cupboards. But the cutest thing is that after it is all out, she starts trying to put it back in/on where it goes.

--Started wanting to drink from my water bottle when I was drinking. She is totally a pro! It's so cute to watch her see the water bottle, reach for it, and then drink the water from it as you hold it. After letting her drink from my water bottles for a while, I realized that she was probably ready for a sippy cup. She is still strictly nursing, so I just put water in the sippy but she loves it. At first I would hold the cup for her so she could drink, then she could hold it if I helped position it for her, and now she can pick it up and drink from it all on her own. (As a first-time mom, I don't really know what you are supposed to put in sippy cups for babies, but the water thing works for us.)

--This girl LOVES oranges. Thank goodness she grew out of needing to have all the little membranes peeled off, because scarfs these down. I can barely cut them fast enough for her. She will easily eat two whole oranges in one sitting if I let her. We bought 8lbs of oranges (price matched @ 5 lbs/99 cents - so they were super cheap) and she ate practically the whole 8lbs all by herself. (This is after buying 4 lbs the week before and watching them disappear at an alarming rate.)

--She seriously loves her bath time. Every night after dinner, we sing a little song about bathtime being after dinner and head up to the bathtub. We set her on the rug next to the tub with her hands on the side and turn on the water. She screeches and tries to climb her little self up and over the edge. My favorite thing is that when you pull her little pants down, she knows enough to step out of them. She totally gets the routine. She plays and plays for pretty much as long as we will let her. This month, her favorite game is to try to balance the little toys on the shelf between the tub and the wall. Sometimes she tries to stand up, which gets a chorus of "Bathtime is bum-time" from both David and I. (I love that David helps with the bedtime routine. Lydia is lucky to have such a loving dad.) 

--She loves to walk with her little walker. Before she realized that she could actually walk, she started pushing this little guy around. If it gets pushed up against a wall, she can even walk backwards to back herself out and then start pushing again. It's amazing.

--She still puts her hand in front of her mouth and makes a little indian noise. I finally got a few pictures of it.

--She loves to open up cupboard doors and play with the things inside of them.

--When we first installed the gate on the stairs, Lydia had just started crawling. She pulled on it a little bit, but accepted that it was there to stay. Lately however, she has started to try to crawl under it. There is no way that she would fit - but it is so funny to see her try. She is just getting so smart. She can see the space beneath the gate (we have six inch baseboards, so the gate is higher than you would normally see it), and she wants SO badly to get to the stairs that she tries to squeeze in. Of course, she then gets fairly upset. We have to keep the gate locked all. the. time. because otherwise she beelines straight for it. 

--Her eyes are SO so blue. Everytime we go anywhere people always comment about her eyes and how big and blue they are. I hope that they stay just as big and blue as they are right now. (My whole family has tiny little eyes. It's like a joke that we always look squinty in our pictures so whenever we take a picture someone always says "wide eyes!" and we all try to make our eyes look as big as possible in order to take a normal picture.) I love that her eyes look just like David's. Sometimes when I am nursing her, I just stare into her eyes and try to come up with a good description for them. Sometimes they are deep and blue like a raging sea. Sometimes they look like something you would find in the middle of an ice castle. Sometimes they look like hundreds blue crystals sparkling in a cave. I haven't found the perfect description - but someday I will. 

-- Lydia loves to play with the magnets on our fridge. I love that there are just enough to perfectly spell her name.

 

--We have been going to the park a lot lately, and Lydia loves to swing! 

--March Madness is just about wrapping up, and it has been a great month of basketball. Lydia filled out her own bracket by picking the color for the team she wanted. She loves basketball like her daddy. 

--In the mornings, Lydia loves to crawl around her daddy's feet. She especially loves to help him shave. For some reason she thinks that his shaver is so interesting. I love when she puts her hand on the handle while he is actually shaving and smiles as she is "helping" him. 

 

--Remember the little sucker that Lydia got for Valentines Day that she loved to carry around? Well, after playing with it for so long, somehow the wrapper got dislodged and she discovered that it was candy inside. I had to laugh when I looked over and found this. (Of course, I took it away right after the picture... and finished it myself.) 

--Lydia LOVES balloons. We had a few around for Cassie's Bridal Shower and she loved them so much that we kept them around for as long as possible. Here are some of the best pictures of all of her balloon adventures:  

-- This little girl is sleeping SO well! She is napping twice a day (at 9 and 1:30/2-ish) and still sleeping from 8 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. A couple of times, we've let her little doll stay in bed with her and she wakes up and plays with it for a few minutes. I love her little smile when I come get her out of bed after a really good nap. 

 

--She loves her quiet book. She doesn't understand all of the pages yet - but she does love to pull the little felt pieces off and play with them. 

--She loves climbing on things and then sitting on top of whatever box she can find. I love it. 

Other fun pictures (Because we like to take pictures of this beautiful little girl.) 

Happy eleven months Lydia Elise. We love you!