Such a Big Girl!

Lucy is now 11 months old. She seems to mature a little almost every day.

She is walking a little. She's still a little unsteady, and her record is only 11 consecutive steps; but she has decided that she is a walker rather than a crawler. When she wants to go somewhere, she stands up and walks until she falls and then crawls to her destination. She climbs like a little monkey. She can get onto the couch and Matt's chair without assistance. We have to keep her from climbing on the arms of the chairs because she tends to hurl herself off of things with no understanding of gravity. She dances when she hears music. Sometimes it's just rocking and wiggling her shoulders, but sometimes she jumps and squats and waves her arms and claps until she falls down. Then she seems to break dance until she gets back up to dance some more.

Lucy is also talking a little. She started saying "mama" and "dada" a couple of months ago. The next word was "bubble." She's just starting to try to repeat what we say. She started saying phrases about a month ago, and she uses them at appropriate times: "all done," "I do it," "I got it, and "hi, dad." She will occasionally say "bye bye."

She feeds herself a wide variety of foods. She likes green beans and cherry tomatoes from my garden. She eats watermelon, peaches, pears, mangoes, avocados, strawberries, blueberries, potatoes, pasta, feta cheese blue cheese, and goat cheese. I haven't been trying out spices with her because we're enjoying fresh produce so much right now. This fall and winter, we'll try more spices.

She's still not a good sleeper, but she's a more predictable sleeper. She tends to take two naps that average 1 hour each. She sleeps about three hours at a time at night and nurses back to sleep every time. We're still sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Recently, I've gotten up after feeding her after 8:00 a.m. and have done some gardening while she sleeps for another hour or two. The morning time and two naps are giving me more opportunity to get things done, which is good because I'm teaching a class this semester. We've tried having Matt put her down for her second nap. She cries and cries until she gives up and sleeps. I'm hoping that she will start to associate daddy with sleeping a little.

There's much more to say, but I'll stop for now. I start many posts and publish so few.