11 Months Old!

 Date: January 8, 2012

Weight: Somewhere around 18 lbs or so.

Height: Taller than the couch :)

Teeth:  WE HAVE ONE TOOTH!! It popped through January 6th. She started working on it on New Year's Eve. She started running a fever that got up to 103. She had a faint rash on her trunk, diarrhea (sorry if that grosses you out) and a diaper rash. She was crabby and cranky the entire week that Aunt Mary and Uncle Chad were here. FINALLY about 30 minutes after they left to drive home, we found that her tooth had broken through. So she has ONE bottom right tooth. YAY!

Clothes: Charlotte wears mostly 9 and 12 month clothing even though they are too long and sometimes too big around the waist. Her 6 month pants are finally getting a bit too short. She still looks so petite :) We def need to get wearing all of her warm 12 month clothes before the weather really heats up around here. It's been such a warm winter this year that she hasn't been wearing any crazy warm clothes down here.

Naps: I laugh at the word naps. I laugh when people ask me what time her nap is or tell me that we can work around Charlotte's nap time. Most of the time I think, "What nap?" But really she does need two naps a day... one nap about 2-3 hours after she wakes up and the other anytime between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. Some naps are 2 hours, some are 30 minutes. Yes, I need to be a stickler on them but we just make due. I mean, this is a bonus to her for having a stay at home mom, ya know?

Sleeping: Well, Charlotte goes to bed at 8 pm (unless she requests to go to bed earlier by being a bit of a crabby pants) and she usually wakes up anywhere from 5 am to 8 am. If she does an early wake up, she gets a bottle and goes back to sleep. She still has a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to say "hi" a few times a week. It really just varies. We are working on it. I just can't stand to hear her scream. It breaks my heart and gives me anxiety.

Health: Our healthy little girl just keeps trucking. She hasn't been "sick" yet. Up to this point, she hasn't had an eczema outbreak in months. Her first tooth brought her first real fever (noncontagious) and a runny nose. She's never had a runny nose. It kind of grossed me out a bit. But she's still fabulous. I do have to say thank you to the Soy formula we've had her on the last few months for helping regulate her bowels. Poor thing still has a sensitive tummy but she is doing much better than she did the first 6 months of her life.

Food: My little "fat girl" at heart. Charlotte LOVES to eat. She shovels it in... 2,3,4,5 at a time. She doesn't mess around. Her favorite foods include any fruits (especially fresh ones), Cheerios, anything sweet, Mac N Cheese, Bagels, any type of bread, anything mommy and daddy are eating, cucumbers, goldfish, and any carb. She is not a fan of vegetables. We still try to get her to eat them but I also give her a juice called "Fruitables" that has fruits and vegetables in it. She loves her juice and whatever drink mommy and daddy are drinking. She takes 3 bottles per day usually. Each of them are 6 ounces. If we give her more than 6 ounces then she spits up. It's a bit ridic and gross when she spits up these days... because it's more like actual vomit. Yuck. She LOVES her bottles.

On the Move: Charlotte does not like to sit still. She is constantly moving... however, she is not walking. I mean, why walk when you can just crawl places :) She crawls and crawls and crawls. I sometimes forget how fast she can crawl and before I know it, she's made it across the house and I can't find her. She cruises everywhere as well. However, once she reaches the end of the couch, the table, etc., she lets go and drops down and crawls. Every once in awhile, once in a blue moon really, she will attempt to take 2-5 steps toward something. She's just a very cautious little peanut. She pushes her little walking toys all over the place, even runs behind them. While we were in Illinois, she learned how to navigate stairs. There is one step between my parent's kitchen and family and she had to learn how to go up and down it. Daddy taught her how to do it. Within a day, she was going up and down it like crazy and started mastering their big stair case. So, we finally bought a gate for our house because she learned how to do the stairs at our house. She loves books, her new baby dolls, her school bus. She loves getting into cabinets, playing with her little activity table, and she continues to LOVE to be outside no matter what the weather or what time of day.

Friends and Events: In the last month, Charlotte had a lot of firsts. Her first Christmas, first New Year's Eve party, first tooth, first time getting to actually play with some of her friends (like Grayden and Addelyn), first time meeting her new cousin Kyla, first for many foods and drinks, first carnival ride, first time meeting Santa, first snowfall, etc.. She learns something new every single day. It's amazing to see how much she changes with the blink of an eye. Naturally in our month of crazy holidays and travelling, we still made time to see her boyfriend, Gavin. There's always time for Gavin in Charlotte's book :) She was able to play with all of her Weber second and third cousins at Christmas at Grandma Ann's house. It was such a busy month for us and for her and her growth.

She still has her own reservations about "new people" or "strangers". She LOVES to talk to them, but actually going to them or with them is a different story. The best time to try to get her to go to you is when there is alot of stimulation going on around you. Then she is so busy trying to soak it all in that she doesn't realize she isn't with Alex or I.

As I write this, she is already 12.5 months old. It's weird looking back at how much she has changed from then until now.

And time just keeps passing....and she just keeps growing...