11 Months

Chow Mein Noodles turned 11 months yesterday.  She's still not walking, but she works on her agility by hurdling the wooden beam that runs along the bottom of the kitchen table.  The beam is just up to her crotch, so for weeks she's been standing up under the table, reaching across to a chair on the other side, and lifting one leg up and over the beam and then the other.  It's cute to watch her get on her tiptoes and then struggle to get her other foot all the way over.  Then she turns around, reaches over to a chair on the other side, and does it again.  It's a fun little obstacle course for her, although slightly dangerous.  (She has taken a number of spills.)  She makes her way down the table and then hurdles the beams on the ends sometimes, too.  She's really too tall now to play under the table, but occasional head bonks don't stop her. 

She's not very into baby food anymore and prefers to eat what the big people are eating.  Jim still gets baby food into her by doing spins and slides before each bite.  Last night he was also talking like an auctioneer, counting how many bites she had taken.  ("Let's go for 49, 49.  You might think that's a prime number, but it's not.  7 times 7, 49.")  It was quite a production.  She prefers bread products, bananas, tomatoes, cooked carrots, salmon (her dad's obssessed with salmon, so I guess it's only natural), oatmeal (the real kind, not the baby cereal), and avocado. 

She remains an excellent growler and is an easy audience.  Sometimes she does the cutest deep belly laugh.  She's learning to do "knuckles" and blow kisses.  She has a great wave and apparently now knows that waving goes with "bye-bye."  (After I bathed her this week I was saying "bye-bye" to her rubber duckies, and she started waving at them.)  She dances a lot.  Her favorite sound is still "dada," but she doesn't know what it means.  When she's upset she says, "mama."  She is not a snuggler, but I have gotten some amazing hugs from her recently - usually when I'm getting her up from bed.  Some lasted a long time, and I just bounced her and patted her and soaked them in until she finally moved.  She plays by herself pretty well and likes taking her books out of their storgage box, putting them back in, etc. 

She's got six teeth, and I struggle to brush them.  Jim usually doesn't bother to try.  One of her front teeth is gray, and I'm sure it's rotting out of her head. 

Sometimes when I leave the room, Jim tells her, "Mama's leaving, and she's never coming back."  I think it's funny, but maybe it's scarring her for life. 

The other day I was talking to Meiken Alexander (formerly Shupe), who's in my ward, about babies, handling multiple kids, and things like that.  I don't remember the exact context, but at one point Meiken said, "But you have the perfect baby."  I said, "She's not perfect.  She gets tantrumy.*"  Meiken said, "Well, perfect hair then."  That made me laugh.  I love that Dolly was (and apparently still is) so famous for her hair. 

*I am aware that "tantrumy" is not a word.