July so far

Our days have been long and lovely. It seems like so much time every morning, but we fill them quickly with walks, hikes, baby gym class, visits, the zoo, the grocery store, hunting for thrifted treasure.

Since I never got around to posting the 11 month update, here’s one in retrospect to where she was at around her 11m birthday. At 11 months K weighs 19 lbs and has two teeth (center bottom, first was the one on her left, the next one came in just about a week later and then nothing since). She has been standing up on her own without pulling up, just in the middle of the floor, for more than a month now – mostly when holding and distracted by a toy. She can stand for a long time now, record is about a minute, but will look up, lose her balance and sit back down. She has taken a few steps independently but doesn’t like to walk holding hands. She is very attentive to the things we say and waves anytime someone says “hi” or “bye” and waves also at sirens and trucks we hear go by occasionally. My favorite is when she catches context without the usual key words, like when my dad was over and said “well, it was nice to see you – I should get the car back” and she started enthusiastically waving goodbye.

Up to present now: The week of 7/11-7/15 she got two new teeth and on the morning of 7/15 she suddenly went from taking 2/3 steps at a time to 6/8 steps at a time. Now on 7/21 she’s at around 12 steps at a time and can sometimes step on or over things and keep going, and often bends down to pick something up and then keep going. She still only says mama reliably and uses tone and inflection to convey the rest, but she has also said dada a few times, ball twice, and seemed to try to say dog once while pointed at a dog, but it was fairly unclear so I’m not sure if that counts yet.

I’m looking forward to her walking well so I can put her in dresses and long tops without tucking them in, but it’s surreal to see how soon this stage will be done. I gave in and gave her Juniper Kitty early and she adores her – especially the paws and whiskers. I may add a tail too.