Eleven Months

Today Callie June is eleven months old.  How did that happen?

Her two little teeth are my favorite!

Big news this past month: she crawls!  Like, for real crawling.  No more of this sidewinder business.  And she doesn't really need much motivation to do so anymore - she does it for the thrill of crawling, it seems. She's been having a ball exploring the apartment (what we let her get to of course - no exploring the stairs just yet) and getting into mischief (for example, I found after she had been playing in what I thought was the diaper bag over by the door her hand was completely black - under the fingernails and everything; it turns out she was reaching her little paws into our floorboard heater units - they're not turned on! - and they are apparently not too clean inside!)

Crawling has also introduced a bit of
fun and unpredictability into our
photo shoots.

And, because, really, who doesn't love a video of a baby crawling?  I'll give you two:

Cal's second day of crawling

Cal's thirteenth day of crawling

She's still a little squirt, but she's a hearty eater and has been refusing to be spoon fed a lot more often these days.  Needless to say, she takes a lot more baths lately too.  Usually right after dinner.  She loves to eat cottage cheese, prunes, applesauce, sweet potatoes, noodles, cheese, cheerios, bananas, pears (sometimes), peas, hamburger, rice, eggs, squash, avocados, strawberries, blueberries, pizza crust . . . even sauerkraut!  . . . basically, if it's edible (and even if it's not) she'll eat it right up.  Especially if she can feed herself.  She also still loves her milk straight from the source.  I'm not sure how weaning is going to go in the next few months if she won't drink (much) from a sippy cup, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

Healthy and insanely flexible, this one is.

I think Cal is getting close to saying some "real" words.  Of course she can sign real words, and she's doing great at that (we've added "water" and she's pretty much mastered "food/eat" and we're starting to introduce "shoes").  But lately when she plays with a little cow toy that Gregg brought home from a conference in Vermont recently, I'll hear her saying (without prompting) "mmmmm" which can only mean one thing: "moo".  (She says it, too, when we're reading a story and point out a cow in a picture or when we play with the cow finger puppet, so it's pretty consistent.)  Along those lines, I've heard her try to mimic "quack" (she says a really loud "aaaah") and "ruff ruff ruff" (she leaves off the f sounds).  And I swear she says "hi" when she waves hello.  So that's kinda fun.

Hi, mom!
(Waving her cute little freckle-palmed hand.)

I tried to get her to wave on video, but of course she conveniently refused till after I stopped filming.  Then, when I was playing it back and she heard me say hi on the recording, waving began in earnest once again.  So I tried again.  Take two was a little better.  But still not as good as in real life.  I also was able to record some of her jabbering/singing that I so love to hear.

Waving, take 1

Waving, take 2

Talking, jabbering, singing

Yep, being the mom of this darling eleven-month-old is pretty much the best.

Watch Callie grow: 10 months | 9 months | 8 months | 7 months | 6 months | 5 months | 4 months | 3 months | 2 months | birth