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11 months old

Look who turned 11 months old on January 25th!

Greta, you are growing so fast! I can't believe next month you will be one year old!
A little about Greta:
- You are babbling like crazy. Sometimes, it sounds like you say "hi", "I love you", and "Sofie". You definitely know how to say da-da and sometimes will say ma-ma.
- We are working on your sign language. I think I caught you signing "more" a few weeks ago when you were eating puffs in your high chair. You sign "milk" but usually it happens when you are drinking your bottle and you don't sign to let us know yet that it's what you want. We will keep working on your signs and I think you'll catch on in the next month. I'm excited to be able to have an easier way to communicate with you.
- You are a picky eater. We've really struggled with introducing solid foods to you. You prefer your bottles and more times than not won't eat a bite of your pureed foods. You love puffs! We've also tried a lot of other finger foods like peas, bananas, avocado. We just tried a new brand of food this week from Ella's Kitchen and you LOVE it! I'm hoping we've turned a corner and you really start to enjoy eating more solid food.
- You love your bottles! Most days you still won't drink more than 5 oz bottles. A week and a half ago we started mixing Good Start formula in with the breastmilk in your bottles and you aren't seeming to notice. You hated the Similac and Enfamil formula mixed into your bottles and we couldn't even hide 1 oz of formula in your bottles without you noticing. So far, we're up to 2 oz  formula and 3 oz of breastmilk and you take your bottles fine.  You still drink about seven 5 oz bottles per day. You usually drink a botte at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 7pm, 11pm, and 3am. Sometimes you don't want to drink your 7pm bottle and then you are up between 9 or 10pm. You won't eat unless you are super hungry and not a minute before. You often don't finish your bottle. You've started wanting to sit up while you drink your bottle because you like to look around. I miss holding you like a baby and cuddling during your bottle feeds. The only times that I can rock and hold you while feeding you a bottle is at 11pm and 3am. Not a perfect time, but I guess I'll take it. You still won't hold your bottle while eating but the minute you are done drinking you want to hold the bottle and play with it. We have been working on getting you to try the sippy cup but you mostly just play with it. The last week you've started making a moaning noise when you want milk. It's different from a normal cry and let's us know it's bottle time.
- You are still taking 3 naps a day. If we are out more during the day you will sometimes take 2 longer naps. Your morning nap seems to be the most important and you usually nap from 9-10:30am, nap at 1pm, and 4:30pm. You usually need a nap about every 2-2.5 hours. You do a wonderful job of putting yourself to sleep for naps and bedtime.
- You go to bed around 7pm. Sometimes earlier if you didn't get a late afternoon nap.
- You wear size 3 diapers at night and cloth diapers during the day. You still fit into my favorite cloth diapers, the size medium Bumgenius AIOs but I don't think they are going to fit you much past your 1st birthday.
- You wear a variety of 6-12 month clothes. I'm interested to see how much you weigh at your one year appointment because you seem to have slimmed out in the waist a bit with all the crawling you've been doing.
- You are crawling everywhere. You still mostly army crawl but seem to crawl on your knees when you are on the kitchen floor. You have been pulling up to your knees more the past two weeks and on Saturday you pulled up to stand while holding onto your toy box. Daddy was home with you but I missed it. Boo. Please do this again soon so I can see.
- You are so affectionate. You love to give kisses and crawl into our laps. You often hold your arms up to be held and I happily oblige by snuggling you every chance I can get. I will sometimes put you in the Beco carrier so I can get a few things done but still hold you close so you can get your cuddles.

Helping mommy in the kitchen.

- You have started to show us a little more of the dramatic side of your personality lately. You hate getting your diaper changed for some reason and it usually causes some tears. Luckily, the tears pass quickly and the majority of the day you are pretty happy and smiley.

Love playing with mommy's cell phone.

You also love playing with blocks. We stack them high and you like to knock them down.

We can sometimes get you to wave.

Sharing? Umm... having a hard time with that one. Whatever someone has you usually want.

At storytime last Thursday with your friend Harper.



- My favorite thing to do with you is hold you and sing songs or read books. You love reading little board books and will babble and smack your lips while you turn the pages. You will also try to sing along when I sing songs you are familar with like Twinkle, Twinkle or A,B,Cs.
- Your favorite toys are not really toys. You love spatulas, measuring cups, plastic hangers, a popcorn tin you use for a drum. You love to inspect things and are very visual.
- You have always been a really good passenger in the car. You love to look out the windows and will just babble and shriek in delight while we are driving. Sometimes if I sing in the car you will chime in. You've also found your rhythm this month and will bounce up and down to the beat of music.

Your mommy and daddy love you so much!

book worm

Greta loves to read books. Recently, she's started "reading" the books herself. I will catch her softly babbling while she's fliping the pages and the book every which way. She will sometimes put the pages facing out like she is reading to a group and showing them the pages. We go to storytime 3 times a week at the library so I don't know if she is mimicking the librarian and how she holds the book to show everyone the pages. Greta loves the little board books like the one she is holding in the video. It's probably her favorite thing to play with. The one we often read is "Pease Porridge Hot". She loves rhymes and will often bounce up and down to the beat. Here's a video I taped today of her reading a book. She's usually a little more talkative but she gets quiet when she sees the camera. The squeals and kicks she's doing at the beginning of the video are what she does when she's excited.

ready steady go!

I captured on video the end of Greta's giggle fit last night. She was laughing hysterically before I started videotaping but toned it down a bit once I pulled out the camera. Go figure. Chad was playing ball with Sofie and he would say "ready, steady, go" before he'd throw the ball and Greta thought it was hilarious.

eating and playing

We've had a pretty low key start to the week. It's been so cold here we haven't been getting out as much. Last week, we started slowly adding Gerber Good Start formula to the breastmilk in Greta's bottles and she seems to like this formula better than the other brands we've tried. We're up to 2 oz formula and 2-3 oz. breastmilk. I'm pleasantly surprised that she's doing so well. :knock on wood: She hasn't been doing as well with solid foods. She loves puffs but is pretty finicky about the other foods we've introduced. She will just shovel the puffs into her mouth like a little chipmunk.

One of the few times she actually ate a good amount of pureed food.



Waiting for more puffs at Panera.

Playing with her baby and feeding her a bottle. She's a good little mommy.

Sofie likes to play alongside Greta.

Strike a pose!

Otherwise, not much to report. Greta turned 11 months old today. I can't believe she is almost a year. I've started planning her 1st birthday party. We're also having her dedicated that weekend so it will be a busy but fun weekend.

Buddies. Sofie is so good with Greta.

Greta has started to grab for Sofie more but nothing to serious. We just always watch her around Sofie and are trying to teach her "soft touch" with Sofie.

Happy Tuesday!

fun at the zoo

Last Saturday, Chad and I took Greta to the Minnesota Zoo. This was Greta's 3rd trip to the Minnesota Zoo but it was the first time Chad was able to come with us. It was incredibly cold so we weren't able to see everything at the zoo but it was still a nice visit. We spent about 3 hours there and that's about all Greta could handle. She fell asleep the minute we started driving home.

She was so scared of this coyote statue. Wait until she sees one in our backyard. I'll probably have the same expression on my face.

Mountain lion



Lynx



Greta was scared of the Lynx pelt.

Komodo dragons

Black and White Colobus Monkey

Greta loved looking at all the tropical fish.

Leading the way.

Greta was definitely more aware of the animals this time compared to our other zoo visits. I'm excited to bring her back to the zoo when the weather warms up so we can walk around the outside trails and visit the farm animals. I think we'll have to get a membership when she gets a little older because it's a really fun family outing.