Saturday was Alethea’s eleven month birthday.  Happy Birthday, Baby!

For most of this past month Alethea was only willing to walk when someone was waiting to catch her if she’d fall, but just over the past week she has started to branch out on her own and can even sometimes stop or turn while she’s walking.  She still looks a bit like Frankenstein or as one friend said, a drunken sailor, but she is getting more fluid every day.

Although she has put most of her energy into walking, Alethea has also added a few more words to her vocabulary this month.  She now says ‘ball’, ‘clock’, ‘that’ (which she uses as she points to things she wants you to name) and much to my delight, she finally says ‘mama’… so sweet.  She did say ‘puppy’ quite clearly the other day while playing with her toy dog, but she hasn’t said it since, so I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not.

Feeding has gotten a little easier this month.  Alethea is more willing to try new things lately and will pick up some things that aren’t dry, like strawberry slices.  (She is turning into quite a strawberryaholic actually.)  She also has begun feeding herself using a spoon, although I have to hold the container she’s spooning out of to prevent it flying across the kitchen.

Sleeping has been so much better this month.  Alethea now will generally go to bed between 7 and 8 p.m.  I wake her up for a late night bottle at around 11:00 and then she sleeps through until between 5 and 6 a.m.  Then I feed her again and it’s back to sleep until between 7:30 and 8:30.  It’s so amazing how much better I feel now that I’ve gotten a few weeks worth of good night’s sleep.  And Alethea seems to be in a much better mood as well.  She’s downright funny these days.  Such a ham!

Well that’s about it for month eleven.  The year has gone by very quickly and I now I have to decide what we’re doing for a birthday party!  Can you believe that it’s less than a month until Alethea’s first birthday?  I can’t.  I’d better go get planning.

Recent police report from our area:

“A box of Tagalongs Girl Scout cookies was reported stolen from an unlocked vehicle 7:21a.m. Feb. 27…”

The police have not arrested anyone in the case, but Cookie Monster is a prime suspect…

Recently I have been realizing that although having a kid isn’t always intellectually stimulating, I am learning a lot of things along the way.  Just over the past few days I have discovered the following:

1) Baby teeth can disappear.  Alethea had six teeth showing the other day and now she only has five.  One of the top ones has gone back up into the gum line.  How weird is that?!?!?  I just hope that it doesn’t mean we have to go through another few weeks of grumpiness to get the tooth back again.  That just wouldn’t be fair.

2) Children have an odd sense of what constitutes fine cuisine.  My baby who has actually chewed up and swallowed a piece off a corrugated cardboard box refused to eat the piece of Daddy’s hot off the grill Angus beef hamburger she was offered for dinner the other night.  Crazy kid.

3) I can feel Alethea’s teeth even through blue jeans.  Yes folks, We seem to have entered a biting phase.  Getting bit through blue jeans doesn’t hurt so bad.  When she bit my bare neck, it left a mark for several hours.  I’m not sure what’s gotten into her and why she’s gunning for me.  She has made no attempt to bite Peter while I’m becoming a little scared to hug her since I never know when it’s coming.  What have I done to my child to cause so much resentment so early in her life?

4) Even with a crowded crib, Alethea can tell when something isn’t as it should be.  The other night when we put Alethea to bed, her brown fuzzy blanket with the silky edge was in the dryer downstairs.  Although she went to bed with her remaining five crib items (nuk, backup nuk, pink blanket, teddy bear and stuffed puppy) she seemed to be having a hard time settling in.  It took me a bit, but I finally realized what was missing and sure enough, the second she had the blanket in hand, she laid right down and went to sleep.  I wonder if that blanket will be her security item.  Or maybe she’ll have 6 security items?!?!  Oh, boy!

In the days of my youth I spent many a summer weekend playing in softball tournaments.  The other day I was wearing a sweatshirt obtained at one such event.  The shirt in question features a ball in a glove with a bat and words surrounding it, so that the ball is only a small part of the overall design.  This is why I was intrigued to notice that Alethea seemed excited by the shirt and kept pointing directly to the ball.  I said to her, “That’s a ball Alethea.  Can you say ball?”  She said, “Baa.”

My amazement at her picking up a new word so quickly was later explained when Peter arrived home from work that evening.  “Have you been teaching Alethea to say ‘ball’?” I asked him.  “Yeah, why?” Peter responded.  I explained to her proud Papa that Alethea not only could say ball, but also recognized a 2-D representation of one.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, any guy who tries to teach his 8 month old to play catch is probably going to teach her to recognize a baseball somewhere in the process.

All of this has me wondering what’s coming next.  In my mind’s eye, I can just see Alethea at her preschool screening when the nice teacher holds up the number 7 and asks Alethea, “Do you know what number this is?”

“Of course I do,” Alethea will say.  “That’s Joe Mauer’s number!”

The time change has thrown Alethea’s schedule off a little bit, but having more sunshine sure does put everyone in a good mood.  Alethea’s been outside to play for the first time in months and my-oh-my has she had a grand time.  She does try to eat rocks, but we’re working on that.  Having a little sneak preview of what is to come has made me even more anxious for summer, but in the mean time, we’ll take all the beautiful March days we can get.

Saturday was Alethea’s ten-month birthday.  Happy Birthday, Baby!

February was a big month for Alethea’s gross motor skills.  As I’ve already mentioned in another post, she began crawling up stairs in the middle of the month.  At first she would only do one or two steps, but now she can quickly do a whole flight.  She still tries to go down the stairs face first, so that is something that we are working on.  Hold on for a second while I go get our climber off the steps…

Okay, I’m back.

The biggest milestone Alethea reached this month was walking.  She still only takes a few steps here and there and only when someone is there to catch her, but she’s working on it.  I think the best part about this milestone is that she is very self-aware now and is excited to be doing something new.  She’s so proud of herself, you can just see it on her face whenever she manages several steps in a row.  (I don’t suppose the lavish praise from Mommy hurts her self esteem either.)

As far as other skills go, Alethea’s vocabulary that was rapidly expanding in the middle of the month seems to have stalled out lately due to all the walking practice.  She still says “all done” and “uh-oh” on a daily basis, but she is a lot less vocal than she was a couple weeks ago.

Alethea has begun putting objects in larger objects.  She does this when she puts her toy balls in her play gumball machine.  She also sometimes drops toys into the toy basket in the living room.  I’m hoping this means her next milestone will be picking up after herself.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

While being slightly early on the walking/talking fronts, Alethea continues to lag behind in the eating/sleeping arenas.  She hardly eats any solid food because she refuses to eat anything (except yogurt) off of a spoon and she is fairly picky about which finger foods she consumes.  I’m sort of at my wits end as far as feeding her goes and can’t figure out whatever happened to my “will eat anything, pickles included” baby.

Sleeping?  I’m too tired to go there, so let’s just say it hasn’t gotten any better this month.

On a more pleasant note, Alethea is starting to love reading and will actually sit still through two or even sometimes three of her board books.  I’m overjoyed about this because reading to my child was one aspect of parenthood that I was really looking forward to and up until recently it was a battle just to keep Alethea on my lap long enough to read the title page.

Well, I think I’ve hit on all the major things that came up in February.  To sum up month 10: eating and sleeping = bad.  Gross and fine motor skills = progressing nicely.  Vocabulary = 5-7 words.  Oh, and tooth count = 6.

Thanks for reading!