Every Day Ayla - Month 11

Well folks, this is it.

The last monthly every day collage. Next month we'll finish off this project with a nice video of a whole year of my baby girl. I can't believe it. All day while editing the pictures, I just kept shaking my head.

Why does it amaze or sadden us when our children grow up? That's what we want, right?

The word of month 11 is "communication." Ayla's language skills have been on the forefront of her development and it's been fun to see her connect things she says or signs to the effect that has. She can now sign "milk," "dog," and "please," and she says "yeah," "ball" (baw) and "kitty" (ity).

She's picking up relational skills, too. She can blow kisses and roll a ball back and forth. She hands me books she wants me to read to her, then either climbs in my lap or sits by me and helps turn the pages. She hugs and kisses her stuffed animals and her balls. She really likes balls. (I know you want to snicker, go ahead. Now get over it.) She loves music and "dances" when she hears it, and by dancing, I mean bouncing up and down. When I'm putting her to bed, she starts to hum because she knows I'm about to sing to her. No word yet on when we'll do our first mother/daughter recording, but you'll be the first to know!

This month, her first tooth finally popped through. My siblings and I didn't get teeth until after our first birthdays, so I suspected she might be a late teether. It's nice to see some result of all these months of drooling, pain and intermittent irritability, but that sucker is sharp!

She's standing more on her own, and enjoys pushing her train-walker around, but still prefers to crawl more than anything. She's becoming quite the climber too, so it looks like more baby proofing is in order.

I started giving her grains this month, but most of her diet is still fruits, beans and veggies. She's kind of a ninja when it comes to picking up and eating food off the floor and since we have a pretty active social life, she gets ample opportunity to sample what her playmates drop. You know, come to think of it, they may be working out some kind of deal with all that screeching and babbling they do. I'll have to look into it.

My goal is to wean her after her birthday, and (officially) introduce meat and dairy then, too. Right now, I'm trying to get her to drink out of sippy cups more regularly so I can keep her hydrated once she's weaned. She likes to drink from straws, and commandeers my water bottle whenever she sees it, but it seems to be more of a novelty and less of a way to actually down liquid.

I'm so proud of this girl. We spent three of the last four weeks with John traveling through three time zones to Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and South Carolina. She did so well on the planes, in hotel rooms, playing with our friends' kids, playing with her cousins, taking naps pretty much on schedule and wasn't even phased by the time zone changes. Of course, it helped having an extra set of hands. I was totally spoiled!

And of course, she loved being with her daddy. If you've met her, you know she loves everyone. I think that's how she approached him at first, like she does everyone else, but by the end of the three weeks, I'm pretty sure they bonded in a special way. She definitely knows who Dada is, even though she still uses that term indiscriminately. Now when we Skype with him, she gets very excited, waves and starts using all her sign language. It's very cute.







Speaking of cute, here are her last 30 days: