11 Months Old - A Jackson Family

Dear Emily,

Eleven months has come upon us so very quickly. You are a much closer to a toddler now than baby.

Your sign language repertoire has exploded in the last week. To “more” you’ve added “all-done”, “thank-you” (We have a book called “I can say thank-you” and one day you sat there for thirty minutes on my bed and turned the page and signed thank-you, turned the page and signed thank-you, over and over again. Now anytime you hear it you sign, but you don’t really know what it means), “water”, and “bunny” (one finger hopping up and down). Each time you add a sign it starts to get confused with other signs, but you know that signing communicates so sometimes you go through your signs hoping that we will figure out what you are trying to say.

At ten months you had one cute little tooth. During our initial move from Kansas to Indiana and back to Iowa, you got a second bottom tooth and your first top tooth. The week that we moved from Iowa back to Indiana, you started working three more top teeth. It took over a week before two of them cut through, and the last one is just about ready to join the rest. Five teeth in one month is a pretty big accomplishment for the whole family.

You still prefer crawling and holding our hands to walk as your main transportation, but now you are starting to stand up by yourself without holding onto anything. You seem so very grown-up in those standing moments. Sometimes we see you try for taking a step, but you very quickly sit down instead.

September 2 was the first time I saw you make the distinction that some toys are yours and you don’t want to share them. We had our neighbors stop by to play and you had three of your dogs downstairs. You wanted all three and didn’t want anyone else to touch them. A whole new world has just opened up.

I believe your favorite pastime is playing the piano. Throughout the day I hear you walking up and down, playing the keys from low to high and high to low. Sometimes you even dance to your piano playing.

Speaking of dancing, you dance to anything with rhythm. The printer and dishwasher (at Grandma’s house, I wish we had one here) even will do. And dancing is you having a very serious face and rocking back and forth a little timidly, usually looking at us to see if it is okay to be dancing. We are happy to join you enthusiastically to whatever noise you discover.

You love rocks. When we were staying at my parents house you discovered the stones they have in their front yard and grabbed as many as you could you your hands (four). I had to wait until you were almost asleep to pry them out of your hands, which you were not pleased about. Every day you seem to collect more treasures, but not just any treasure will do. We were at the park by our new apartment and you had acquired two sticks, one for each hand. As we started making our way back to the apartment you found a piece of asphalt that looked like a rock and quickly picked it up, dropping the stick. Our walk home continued until you saw a genuine rock. I tried to move forward but you circled back around and sat down by the rock. You then looked at the stick in your hand, the asphalt rock in the other hand, and back at the stick. Decision made, you dropped the stick and grabbed the new rock, ready to head home. It is always tragic to have these treasures taken out of your hand, but I’m learning if I do it at dinner time and trade you for food that it is more successful. I can’t let you keep the rocks for the night because sometimes you stick them in your mouth and I’d prefer that doesn’t happen in the middle of the night when I can’t monitor you.

Your eating habits have remained quite clean. You have never thrown food or even played with it much and you eat pretty much everything. However, you do run your very dirty hands through your hair and grab the back hair multiple times during a meal. You’ve had a runny nose with teething so you also rub your nose to forehead area. This means you end up very dirty and your hair end has a nice, natural gel. You have also begun feeding yourself with a spoon! Well, we put the food on the spoon and then hand it to you and when you want more you hand the spoon back. I don’t think this will last much longer, but it suits us all for the moment.

You love snuggling on things that are soft. The carpet, couch, and our bed are the usual locations. Sometimes you lay down, other times you just bury your head against the cushions or pillow. You demonstrated this perfectly while we were taking your pictures today.

The last few days you have begun taking your dad’s old phone and putting it up to your ear to talk. We pass it back and forth for short conversations. You also discovered your old bottles in the closet and have been feed your baby Snoopy with the bottles. This would be high up on the list of really cute things you do. When we are in the bathroom you turn off the light and laugh and laugh and laugh. I turn the light back on and with a big grin on your face, you turn it off again and we laugh some more. This game continues until you aren’t rolling in laughter. We also chase each other around the house and play peek-a-boo a lot.

You and Dad play with the basketball quite a bit; passing it back and forth, or throwing it against the back of the couch and having it roll towards you both and you pounce on it.

He also does silly things like put his coat on you.

We have been trying to teach you how to go down the stairs backwards and off the couch correctly. Dad in particular has worked with you on this skill. We thought you were starting to get the hang of it this weekend, but then you realized it is a lot easier to just slide headfirst down Dad’s legs.

We have stopped using most electronics around you because you want them sooooo badly and that doesn’t bring out your best behavior. Occasionally they do come out while you are awake and you have a talent for finding them. I tried to put my itouch on the couch behind me and distract you. You gave me a BIG hug, which I thought was awesome, and then I realized you were playing with my itouch behind my back. Sneaky snuggles I’ve dubbed them. But more often then not you give genuine and wonderful snuggles which we love. They have been more frequent lately.

We played red light, green light, for the first time with you tonight as our family home evening activity. You were doing some serious laughing as we spun around to be the red light.

Your daily discoveries and new games make this phase of life so fun and full of joy. I love being your mom Emily and exploring the world with you.

We love you Emily!