11 Months

My little Cara-boo how I love you!  In the last month she has really found her personality and that laugh is such music to our ears.  Her giggle rings through the house when something makes her happy and by something I mostly mean her big sister.  Or when she knows that she is doing something that makes you laugh and she continues to do it repeatedly, while looking out of the side of her eyes just to see you happy in a way that just absolutely melts a mother's heart.  She still just has just the 4 teeth but is working SUPER hard on some more, she does really well with letting us brush them too, I think it feels good on her gums.  Dr. Wiley recommended that we use a spin brush with her to try and keep the iron in her formula from building up on her teeth and it seems to be working pretty well.  She is the most photogenic child I have ever known and she knows it, always smiles or poses when the camera comes out!

She still has eating issues and I am sure now that they probably won't be going away like we had hoped, but we shall see what Dr. Wiley says next month.  OH-MY-GOODNESS  NEXT MONTH!!!!  I can't believe that we will have ourselves a one year old NEXT MONTH!  She eats puffs, crunchies and yogurt bites like they are going out of style, but most anything else solid doesn't stay down long...Now don't get me wrong, she will and can eat solid foods and we have fed solids to her on many occasions, but most of the time that easy gag reflex gets the best of us.  We were told at some point that she should grow out of this, and just within the last week she has done pretty good not gagging on any solids that she has eaten( peas, nutri-grain bar, banana, cheese[shredded], macaroni, bread, and red velvet cake, vienna sausages) so we are praying that this is the light at the end of the tunnel.  She drinks pretty well out of a straw, she didn't have any problems whatsoever learning how either, good to know that she isn't too far behind.   Her reflux seems to be at the wayside now, thank you Lord, we haven't raised her dosage since she was 6 months and she hasn't had any problems with that, so hopefully at her 1yr well visit they will just go ahead and take that out of the equation especially since she out weighted her dosage months ago. 

Did I mention, she walks?  Oh yeah and 11 days before her sister did at her age!  She is fearless, yet she is the most easily hurt.  Addie fell out of a chair on her face the other day in Target, jumped up and said "I'm okay!", Cara, yeah if she is standing and just falls back to sitting, she screams.  But there is NO FEAR when it comes to climbing, crawling/walking on uneven surfaces(meaning the floor and the step that goes in between our den and dinning room) did I mention climbing, attempting to run(forgetting that she doesn't know how to do that yet) or even trying out new places to sit.  She has no trouble bending over and standing back up, she even stands-squats-stands with no problems, she is working on standing from floor up and almost did a couple times over the last few days.  Her walking gets better everyday, and she just amazes me at how she "just knows"  how to do things that took Addie months of working on to get like climbing up steps, or when standing in front of a step to lift her leg to "step up".  Who needs a boy when we have a Cara, and we LOVE having this Cara!  With Addie I could sit her in the floor and trust she wouldn't go anywhere, Cara is gone before I can turn around, yeah we will definitely be using cabinet locks with this one!

Daddy(Dada) is still a dominant word in her vocabulary, I was starting to get worried that she wasn't going to be a talker (like her sister, I know I shouldn't compare)  but then Monday night her and I were in the den and Booskers walked in(Remember this was one of Addie's firsts also) she got very excited, and started pointing at him, I said "kitty" and she started chasing after him pointing and saying "ii-ee, ii-ee".  Now every time he walks into the room she exclaims "ii-ee!"  This morning her and I were sitting in the bed playing and she tried to get something off of the nightstand, I told her no and moved her, she immediately snapped back saying "deh" and sharply nodding her head, as to say "yes".  Then tonight when Grandma was leaving I said "say bye-bye" and she without any hesitation says "bye-bye" (as clear as day) then turns and waves to her!  All in one day, whew!  So I would say we have about 4 good words in the vocabulary, not too shabby for my little 11 month old.  She knows where the baby, the light, and Santa are and she knows how to bounce. She is gaining knowledge so fast and is getting smarter every day, I can't wait to see what Dr. Wiley says about her development next month!