Rosa's 11-month letter

Dear Rosie,
You are 11 months old today!  This means, of course, that you are nearly a year old, which we can hardly believe.  We can hardly believe it because it seems like you have been part of our family forever.  We'll get to a year in our own good time, though, so we'll just focus on what you're up to right now, at 11 months.

You are learning to communicate with us more and more all the time.  You are a talkative kid!  You can now say mama, bye bye, and dat or da doo, which are both your versions of kitty cat.  You can sign milk, bye bye, cat, and sometimes food.  In between your beginning words, you babble in your own language.  And, you love to play mimicking games by alternating sounds with someone else, like saying "ba!" back and forth or making kissy noises.  One of the cutest things you do is to lean in close and say "mmaaa!" while glomming onto our faces for a big kiss.  You also like to interact with other kids and babies, seeming interested in playing with them more than just parallel playing.

Speaking of your mouth, you still love to put things in it.  We are getting better at fishing things out of it, as well!  That doesn't stop you from constantly mouthing everything you see.  You find the tiniest things off the floor and eat them.  Today, you tried some droppings of homemade playdough and found them to be most unappetizing, but you managed to swallow them nonetheless, despite our best efforts.  You may have a career ahead of you in tasting food or something like that.  You love to put one other thing in your mouth:  your thumb!  You suck it in a distinctive fashion, with your whole hand open and always your left hand. 

You love to eat, still, and you do it often.  Your favorite foods this month were beans, lentils, avocado, banana, baby oatmeal, pureed fruit, and yogurt.  You eat yogurt by the truckload, mostly the plain whole-milk kind (which is, by the way, SO DELICIOUS that your mama always has a spoonful or two for herself while she is feeding you).  You still love your mommy's milk at night and your bottles during the day.  You can hold your bottle and drink it on your own now, which probably makes you feel very grown-up. 

You have perfected crawling.  You have also perfected pulling yourself up on furniture.  You can cruise a little bit and we have a feeling that this will increase in the next month.  You can also get yourself up to a kneeling position with one knee on the ground and one up in a crouch, so that you are on the cusp of standing up.  You are fearless when on the ground, exploring at will.  We were at the playpark today and you just crawled away from your mama repeatedly, without looking back.  You never look back!  You are on the move and raring to go exploring all the time.  It's pretty cute.  We are going to have to watch out when you start walking!

You continue to have a love affair with your brother and sister.  You tolerate them hauling you around and 'helping' you do things.  You seem excited when we pick them up from preschool, and you laugh at their antics in the car.  They love to entertain you and help get things for you.  For right now, there is no sibling rivalry at all between you and them and it is a beautiful thing.  

Finally, you are sleeping like a champ.  You had a brief time of waking up in the night when you had a cold for a week, but you are back to sleeping though the night now.  Thanks!!  You continue to nap for about 15 minutes a couple of times a day.  That's not much and you often seem to need more, but you sleep so well at night that we can hardly complain.  You do take the occasional longer nap in the car every so often, which makes your moms very glad that we have a garage now and we can just let you sleep in the van after we get home. 

Last but not least, we think you are just absolutely adorable.  You are so cute, we want to eat you for dessert. 

Rosie, we love you infinitely.  You make us so happy.  We can't wait to see what the next month and your first birthday will bring!

love,
Mama and Mommy