11 Months Old

We were out of town again this last weekend, so I've been catching up on things, including sleep. But here's what has been going on with my baby this last month. I went a little overboard with the videos, but the baby's Aunt Katie was asking for some. So here goes!

Chloë officially started to crawl this month! Almost a month ago she just decided she was going to make it happen. There were a few days where she could crawl three or four paces, and then flop onto her belly to army crawl. Then one day, I watched her crawl across the house. Slowly, but deliberately. And then she had it. The poor baby somehow loses traction and slips once and a while, falling forward and slamming her chin on the hard wood floors. Her two sharp little bottom teeth are not kind to her upper gums, and there is blood and loud cries for a minute or so, and then she has a nice bruise for a week. She is a tough one.

She pulls herself up on just about everything now, and can usually figure out how to get down, too. She likes to walk along the coffee table, and will inspect anything that I might have left there.


One day she randomly backed herself off the couch. Now she does it whenever she gets tired of my kisses.


She has been cutting her first upper teeth, complete with the sad whimpers at night, fever, and the super drooling and diapers to go with it. Three out of four of the teeth have broken through the gums in the last week and a half, and we're hoping to see the fourth and be done with teething for a while. She has just been so sad, and we have had lots of cuddle time.



When she isn't overcome with sadness, she plays well by herself for short periods of time. She likes to inspect and figure out toys and look at books.




Still a very active baby, I worry just a little about making sure she's getting enough calories. She seems so skinny compared to most of my friend's babies close to her age. I know she is completely fine and healthy, but her rolls just aren't as abundant as they used to be. Clothes are getting tricky. Her tiny waist and stubby legs means she is still wearing 3-6 month size pants. Which is hilarious. They look so tiny, but they fit her perfectly. Shirts that are 6-12 month size fit her pretty well, but long sleeves aren't quite long enough any more. Anything size 12-18 month fits her well in length, but is very baggy. Good thing she's a baby and doesn't seem to care how well her clothes fit. Her eyes are still mostly blue, and her hair is getting longer. We haven't tried pigtails yet, but she does the fauxhawk quite well, I think.


She is such a weird eater. She still loves to nurse. She gets excited and starts grunting in anticipation when she sees me pull the nursing cover out of the diaper bag. But, we've slowly been cutting back and introducing more solids. This month we realized that she is not a fan of bland food. Chicken and rice mash, pureed? Yuck. But add garlic, chili powder, cumin and salt, and she goes crazy. We stumbled upon this realization after her daddy let her taste some mexican rice, and she started bleating with delight. We've been feeding her lots of leftover chicken biryani: a dish with chicken, rice, broccoli, coconut milk, onions, green chillies, tomatoes, salt, chili powder, garlic, ginger, coriander, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves. I think she has a palate advanced far beyond her 11 months. She also loves to chew on all kinds of bread, crackers and chips. She does pretty well gnawing off bite size pieces, and sometimes uses her bottom teeth like little saw blades, sawing a cracker or cheerio back and forth for fun, I think. She'll still eat cheerios, but I get the feeling she thinks they're a little dull. When she's eating something she likes, she'll rock back and forth in her highchair. But if she's eating something she is really excited about, she will wiggle side to side. Since she's been extra picky this last week with her teething, I've been introducing all sorts of new things in an attempt to get her to eat more. I'm still avoiding giving her dairy, egg whites, peanuts and strawberries.

Speaking of wiggling, this baby can dance. She'll move her whole body back and forth; hips, shoulders, head... she certainly hasn't seen anyone dance like that, so it just amazes me how innate it is to groove to music. If she isn't standing and can't dance, she'll hold her arm out, palm down, and move her hand up and down and side to side to the rhythm. She'll move to just about anything with a tune or a beat, from my cell phone ringing, to her daddy's loud electric noise, to the hymns at church. She's just too cute.

She's a face maker. Licking her upper lip, scrunching up her face, puckering (she leans in for great kisses, by the way), or doing a classic bitter-beer face, she's a hoot to watch.




Chloë understands so much, sometimes I'm just amazed. One day she just put her hands together and started clapping. I said "good job, you're clapping!" and then she would preform for anyone who asked her if she could clap. In fact, she starts clapping if she hears applause of any nature (live, a random YouTube clip, etc.), even if she can't see anyone else clapping. She also signs "please" now, and will just sit there, patting her chest eagerly if she's being fed.

She's going through another round of separation anxiety. When it is just the two of us at home, she will usually start sobbing if I leave the room unless she is engrossed in some toy. So we hang out a lot. She does like other people, when they're around. Occasionally it will take her a little while to warm up to someone new, and then she likes to be her hammy little self. Sometimes she will act shy and touch her cheek to her shrugged shoulder, but usually she just wants to show off and will wave and clap like she's the center of the universe.



She understand so many simple commands, and it is so amazing to see her contemplate the sounds we make. We made a fire in our fireplace a couple of weeks ago, and we pointed to it and said "No touch. Hot." She looked at the flickering flames for a while, and then pointed and said "dot. Dot."



Whenever I ask her to say "Mama," she looks at me and usually says "Dada." And I'll say "no no no, say MA MA." "DA DA." I don't know if it's her own little game that she knows she's winning or what, but it's kind of cute. She likes to babble when she's playing, but she seems to have developed some particular noises when she's sad or tired, especially "mmmmmmmm-hmm" and "duh daaaa duh daaaaaa."

She likes to experiment with noises, including her recent "ptah ptah" sounds.

And there's this funny lip bubbling thing she does.


She is still not very good at sleeping. Her naps are sporadic and hard to predict, as is her bedtime. Sometimes she'll sleep pretty well at night, and sometimes she wakes up frequently. She has been sleeping in her crib most nights, but I still have a soft spot for bringing her to bed with me if she's sick or having a rough night.

Less than a month until my baby turns one. Woah.