11 Months Old - A Jackson Family

Dear Laura,

At eleven months you are learning so many new things quickly and it is a joy to watch you.

You discovered how to climb up the stairs and play in the toilet in the same day! After weeks and weeks of playing at the bottom of the first step, it is a very exciting development for you. Anytime the gate is open you make a fast crawl over and start charging up. You are very determined to get to the stop and let out a frustrated yell if we take you off mid climb. When you get to the top you make a beeline for Emily and Nathan’s room or the bathroom as we chase you down the hallway. When we try and help you go down the stairs backwards, you treat it like a treadmill and keep climbing back up.

You keep your eye on the bathroom door until you see and opportunity to sneak in. There is a stack of water bottles you like playing with, but the main attraction is splashing in the toilet water. Usually you have a minute or two before we all look around and say “Where’s Laura?”. You are either smiling proud of yourself or frustrated when we take you back out and shut the door.

Laura you spend so much time looking at books. Your favorites are big adult size books with pictures, but picture books are good too. It is common for you to spend 15-20 minutes turning pages with great concentration.

You love pulling yourself up to standing and climbing on top if it is an option. You are tall enough to stand up and play the piano, which you love. You also dance/rock to the music and singing that is going on in our house often.

Laura your love for water is only growing. When I stick you in the bathtub you are sliding and splashing all around with great enthusiasm. There is never a moment where you think you are ready to get out.

Sand is also a new favorite. When you crawl in you kick your legs and react much as you do in the water. You’ve tried eating it but it isn’t your favorite.

You love to crawl around and play with Emily and Nathan. One of your favorites is building duplos with Nathan. You two build side-by-side, although you aren’t actually putting the bricks together yet you do give it a try. Another focus is putting things in a container and taking them back out again.

When it comes to eating, you are taking charge of the experience. One of your preferred ways to eat now is to have us load the spoon and then hand it to you for you to put into your mouth. You are a pro at finger foods by this point, but with only two bottom teeth your options are still a bit limited. We give you lots of beans, bananas, rice, and oatmeal. When you want more food you will grab me and pull me close or let out bursts of yelling. When you want water you just keep yelling and staring right at me. You can drink all by yourself and you also know which cups leak so you can splash water onto your high chair.

With a few exceptions, you are sleeping through the night or only getting up once. You are starting to experiment with only taking one nap a day, but aren’t quite ready yet to make that transition full time.

When you wake up you often embrace us in a hug and a snuggle, which is a new development.

Conversationally, you love to join in. When it is just the two of us you tell me lots of your ideas in a talking form/babbling, and get to stay up a little bit later because of it. When you are with everyone as a group, you still smack and buzz your lips, yell, force laugh to get everyone including yourself really laughing, and repeat “ba ba ba or da da da or mu mu mu”. A few weeks ago everyone had colds and there was a lot of coughing. You picked it up and do a really great series of fake coughs like it is a way that we talk to each other.

Laura we love you so much and are thrilled you are part of our family.