Hollon Elizabeth - 11 Months

Scrunchy Nose Face
This is one of her favorite faces to make

11 Months Old Recap:

Likes: Attention, spoons, water bottles, mam pacifier, brother, leap frog phone, fisher price farm, tent, snacks, iPhone, remotes, patty cake, 

Dislikes: If you ignore her, when brother carries her around, when brother shuts the door to his room

Milestones: She will stand up on her own. She walks if she is holding on to something. Starting to say words. Starting to eat supper with us. Sometimes when she is blabbering, it almost sounds like she is singing. She is starting to dance. She is starting to copy things we say & do. She will give you kisses which is basically her just licking your cheek.

Sleep: Sleeping through the night 95% of the time. Usually once a week, she will cry out in the middle of the night. Usually it is just a few minutes and then she goes back to sleep. She still will cry when you first lay her down. But she goes to sleep after a few minutes. She usually wakes up between 6:00-7:00. She takes her first nap between 8:00-9:00 and sleep for 1.5-2 hours. She takes her second nap between 12:00-1:00 and again sleeps for 1.5-2 hours. Some days her naps are shorter. Especially if Jake is home. She was going to bed at 8:00, but with football practice, it is closer to 9:00. She usually cat naps the nights we have football. She sleeps with her pacifier. She is a lot more attached to it than Jake ever was. With Jake, we were hard core and took it away once he turned one. I've softened in my older years, so please don't judge if she still has it at age 9. She still is not attached to any one particular bed toy, but likes all of them and will play with them until she falls asleep. 

Eat: I am still breastfeeding and will for the next month. Then I'll start weening her. I didn't really mean to go this long, I'm just lazy. Breastfeeding is so quick, easy and there is nothing to prepare or clean up. And it is a life saver when an unexpected work call comes in. She has milk from me when she wakes up, when she wakes up from her naps and before bed. She is eating mostly baby food and some table food. I've been trying to be better about giving her more table food, but one night when Rob was traveling, and I was home alone with the kids, she choked a little of the table food, and it scared me to death. So I made the wise and nondramatic decision to just feed her baby food until she is 18. She likes all food. We haven't really found a food she doesn't like. She can kill some vegetables. She loves them. (Note: when Jake was Hollon's age, I was so proud at how well he ate. I was sure it was my doing and while all those other parents were getting fried chicken nuggets and fries for their kids, mine was happy with grilled chicken & veggies. Ha! Then he found happy meals and he will not touch a vegetable now to save his life. So I'm riding the healthy eating stage with Hollon for as long as I can, but I know as soon as she meets a CFA happy meal, she will be over it.) She also loves to eat crumbs from the floor, paper, legos and tissues.

Appearance: Hair is still crazy, but getting closer to laying down. Still a very light brown, but blond when the light shines on it. Bangs are long and in her eyes and she won't let me keep them pulled back, but I refuse to cut bangs on her. Still 8 teeth, but I haven't checked to see if any new ones are coming in. She is sticking her hand in her mouth, so I wouldn't be surprised if more were coming in. I'm afraid she will have her mama's height. A boy on Jake's football team has a little sister 3 months younger than Hollon and she is so tall & big compared to Hollon. I'm very curious to find out her stats at her 12M checkup in a few weeks.   

Size: 6-12 months in clothes. She can still wear some 3-6 month clothing, but it is tight. I bought several 18-24 month clothing for her for next spring at end of summer sales. She can wear some of it now, but it is big. I can't believe I actually have a child that wears the size clothing of their actual age. (Jake was & still is always 2 sizes ahead of his age.) Size 3 diapers. 

Talking: Favorite words are dada & mama and she seems to understand now that those names are for Rob & I. Any time she has a phone, she holds it up to her ear and says "Hi Dada". She says hi, bye, night-night, baba (baby), brobro (brother) [we are working on saying his actual name], nana. The other day, she kept saying "nomam, nomam, nomam". I had no idea what she was saying until I realized she was saying "no ma'am". Whenever she is doing something she shouldn't, I always tell her "no ma'am!". She blabbers a lot. One day, Jake shut his door in her face and she crawled away mad. I was already standing in the hall and she crawled to me. She had her nose scrunched up and was just a blabbering shouting. I'm pretty sure she was telling on him. Jake has always been very talkative. I don't know what we will do with 2 super talkative kids. 

Movement: She will stand on her own and she will walk holding on to something. She will take a step if we prompt her to, but I'm in no hurry. I love to hear the pitter-patter of her crawling. (I just don't love seeing her knees so dirty due to our dirty floors.) She is starting to dance, which I just adore.     

Overall: She is a funny, sociable, silly, sassy little girl. People always ask if she ever cries. (It is somewhat of a misconception, because as long as she is getting attention, she is happy. She is super happy in public, even with no nap, hot, no food, etc... just because she is getting attention.) I always tell them - when she is happy (which is 75% of the time), she is a laid back extremely happy little girl. But when she is mad? Hell hath no fury. She does not play around. She can scream so loud and so long you will think your ears will bleed. Thankfully, that side comes out less and less as she gets older. I am terrified though it will rear its ugly head as we enter the teenage years. We'll see how much Granddad, Mimi, Nana & Gran truly love her, when we try to ship her off to them. (She really does adore Chuck [Robbie's dad] and I can't wait to ship her off to him when she & I are at wits end. We'll see how cute he thinks she is at 13!) But I love this little girl to pieces. I cannot believe that she is about to be one. I'm sure I'll get around to that post by her 2nd birthday:). Every day she makes me laugh, she makes me feel loved and she is the precious little girl that I could never thank God enough for.