Autumn Makes Me Sing: Eleven Months

Autumn,

The Official Tooth Count = 7! Seven teeth! On November 30th the other bottom middle tooth came in, bringing the bottom teeth total to 3. On December 6th I noticed that your top right tooth had broken through, and the other one appeared on the 8th. We were happily marching along when all of a sudden I noticed both of your eyeteeth had broken through on the 16th. There were a few cranky patches, but not enough to make me think more teeth were ripping holes in your gums. I don't see anything happening with your bottom fourth tooth, but I'm sure it could surprise us any day. I bought you a board book on Saturday and by Sunday the spine had been chewed up in three places. Neither I nor your Daddy noticed you were doing such damage. But apparently, nothing is safe! Your new teething toy is a carrot stick that you will carry around all afternoon.

Ha ha! Last night was terrible, and I am pretty sure I see that bottom fourth tooth peeking out of your gums. Momma was wrong! But only time will tell!

You truly got the hang of walking on December 14th. It was like one minute you couldn't walk alone, and the next you had given up crawling for good.
The first day you "got it":

The Walker from Deb on Vimeo.

And you've only gotten better. What is hilarious is when you try to "run" from us and your little legs are going fast, but your upper body isn't going as fast. There are times when your two halves just don't match up, but you keep going anyway. Not much slows you down. On the 17th of December you were in the middle of the family room and you stood up without pulling yourself up on something! You got yourself into a tripod with one arm on the ground and then you managed to find your balance enough to straighten up. It hasn't happened since but I was pretty amazed when you did it.

The Vacuum Cleaner from Deb on Vimeo.

Your new thing when eating is to wait until we get the spoon somewhat close to your mouth and then use both your arms to waive us off. Like you are on board an air craft carrier and you are telling us we can't land at the last minute. Those arms are crisscrossing in front of your face so fast! A lot of the time you are shaking your head "no" along with the arms. You can imagine the mess it makes if we aren't quicker than you. Baby food is going away, by your decree. Now if only you'd decide you want table food, we'd be all set. The nurse at the doctor's office said that sometimes when babies get teeth they get more interested in eating. I've seen some truth to that. Actually being able to break things off with those teeth gives you great pleasure, so I am hoping that trend continues. Green beans, cheese, crackers, Cheerios, yogurt, waffles...that is about the extent of your non-baby food diet.

The brace has been off and on lately. I think it has a lot to do with the teeth, but we are not doing as well as we did the last 3 months. We go back in February, so hopefully we'll have a few more long stretches where it can do some good. Because, gosh darn it, we are TIRED of it!

The list words that you understand is just growing everyday. I can ask you to get your water cup and you will, or give me the clam and you will go find it and bring it to me. You point to the Christmas Tree and I have to say "Christmas tree" and then you point to the smaller one and I have to do the same, and then you point to Santa, and I have to say "Santa" and then we wave to Santa. I put up a wreath during your nap today and now we have added "wreath" to the routine. I have heard something that could be "tree" come from you a few times. Things need to be named in order for you to be satisfied. I spend most of my day saying the names of things that you point to. My favorite "trick" that you do is to raise either both or one arm above your head when you hear an airplane. And then of course, I need to say "airplane" so that you know you are correct.

Naps are still fairly consistent. Down about 2 1/2 to 3 hours after you get up in the morning and then again around 3 or 3:30. Once you start waking up around 5 in the evening I go around the house and turn on all the Christmas lights so that they can be on when I go get you. But really, the most important thing to do after you wake up from a nap is to "pick flowers". You take the flower pictures down off your wall and we carry them into the hallway where the photos of the family are. We put them on top of various pictures, trading them for the ones that are already there and spend about 5 minutes swapping out flowers. Sometimes we end up with only 1 or 2 of the 12 flower squares actually still in your room. That's when we have to do a replant.