I can hardly believe I’ve spent 11 months now with this baby girl in my arms! She’s got nine teeth now and seems to say (to the very carefully observing and possibly imaginative ear): kitty, dolly, cookie, book, egg, up, na na, mama, daddy, brother, Baba, baby, boo, and something that indicates “I see people I know in that picture” as well as a “go that way” directive sound and maybe says, “get” or “got.” Does baby signs for nurse, eat, and all done. Is into EVERYTHING, stays up til midnight, only goes down for nap in the Ergo, eats toilet paper, loves dolls, and is unbelievably adorable!

My little heart is all aflutter because of her obsession with dollies. If she’s going to be a fan, she’s definitely in the right house!

She practices standing up often, but no steps yet.

Here is a standing video (she’d been practicing over and over when we took this at 11:30 one evening–she had been clapping and cheering for herself every time, but that cuteness disappeared when the video was on!)

And, here is an adorable one of “walking” using a push toy:

I mentioned the staying up til midnight–this is what I see…

I mentioned the toilet paper eating (also at midnight):

And, there’s mouse-eating that happens too. She hopped out of bed of her own accord and stood on my laptop looking like this:

That is another skill this month–can climb out of bed by backing off edge semi-carefully.

She’s fabulous, truly!

The potty strike seems to be waning—has been sleeping dry all night and pottying in morning. Also pottying successfully for all recent poops. She is on the move all of the time and is quite a bit harder to take care of than she used to be! Has destroyed the Christmas tree twice this month—luckily, she wasn’t hurt either time, but there was a shower of broken glass and the second time the tree itself was broken beyond repair. So, my husband cut the top of it off and made a stand for it and now we have a pretty-sad looking tiny, tabletop tree.

I’m on break from teaching and looking forward to three weeks of time off and holiday fun! I’m scheduled for three classes next session (luckily, all the same class, which should make prep time significantly easier). So far, one is very low on registrations though so I may not end up teaching that one and that’s more than okay. I’m nervous about driving in January-February weather and I also really only feel comfortable trying to leave her home for one night per week (that’s right, the time with my mom coming with me is drawing to a close—I don’t feel like I can have a walking [presumably] baby hanging out in the building and my mom, while still gamely trekking out with us, is pretty tired of having to come with me. It isn’t really about proximity for nursing, it is about not being separated from my baby for long, and I’ve very grateful that she’s been willing to keep coming with me for so many months so that we could be together.)