11 month update...a little late

Darci's been 11 months for a couple of weeks now, but I haven't put an update yet with her latest skills! She is still not quite walking, but seems just about to take off. She will walk if you hold her hands, and she is able to stand on her own for about a minute. We're seeing her standing more often now without always having to hold on. So far she has only taken a few independent steps at our urging. We've both been helping her practice by standing her a few steps away from us and beckoning.

She understands more now when we talk to her or ask her things, although still that's not much. The only sound she uses consistently for the same thing is her "kitty" sound, which is basically just a "k" sound. She always makes that sound when she sees either of the cats, and she gets very excited and wants to chase them. She can help a little when you are dressing her, by holding her arms out and such, which also means she can work against you when you are dressing her, although she is pretty compliant and usually puts up with quite a bit when changing her clothes. She will hand you objects, but only when you gesture for them, she doesn't seem to understand their names yet.

She is still very interested in music and loves to hear any kind of music. She will stop whatever she's doing to look and listen, and she sings to herself quite a bit. We can hear her in her crib in the morning just singing and talking.

She has been sleeping through the night consistently for a few weeks now (crossing fingers...). She goes to bed between 6 and 7 every night and wakes sometime after 6. If we aren't ready to get her yet she will play happily with her tiny dolly and other little stuffed toys in her crib unless she needs changed or gets hungry.

Darci is still a very good eater and will eat just about anything you offer her. We've been introducing new flavors over the last month. She is voracious and always wants to be snacking, especially if she sees either of us with food, so we feed her bites of anything we're eating that is good for her. We are transitioning her from formula to cow's milk over the next few weeks, and to help get more dairy into her I tried cottage cheese at her lunch this past weekend. The first few bites went down fine, but then she decided she didn't care for it, and pushed each bite back out of her mouth with her tongue, refusing any more attempts at cottage cheese. It was really funny. I've read that you should try a new food up to 10 times before they will accept it, so we'll keep going with the cottage cheese, maybe with a little more fruit-to-cheese ratio.

She is still wearing size 12-month clothes, and although we can tell she is getting taller, she has slowed down a little on her growth. She has a few 12-month outfits that still aren't quite the right fit. The pants tend to be made for walkers rather than crawlers, and the same is true for dresses or long tops, she gets them caught under her knees as she tries to crawl around. Anyone thinking of new outfits for Darci should look at 18-month sizes, in summertime styles. :-) She could use more onesies and socks are always good! She takes them off wherever she likes, so we usually have some sock orphans in the drawer.

Darci is a very happy kid and very easygoing. She is always good in social situations and loves new experiences. We can't wait to celebrate her first birthday in a couple of weeks. It's hard to imagine life without her now.

Video Fixed?

I uploaded a different format of the video, hopefully this one works!

Another Video

I shot another video of Darci while she was playing yesterday, this one was on my cell phone so the quality isn't great. But she's still cute! She understands what to so with her little phone, she holds it to her ear every time now.

Happy Baby

I was putting away Darci's laundry this afternoon while she played in the crib. She was in such a good mood I had to get the camera out. It is so wonderful to see her happy and healthy again, she had a very tough week last week.

Playing Kitty

Darci is very talkative now but only says three words - Dadda, Mama, and Kitty. She doesn't always say Dadda or Mama to the right person, but she knows the kitties and points and says something that sounds quite similar to kitty, but maybe missing the -itty part.

She loves Mango and Matilda and always wants to watch them or touch them if they let their guard down. Here she is the other night 'playing kitty' with Matilda.

Darci's First Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Darci. We drove to Salem to see her McCoy Grandparents and her Auntie Emily, and dogs Duke and Daisy too. The ride in the van was 7 hours, and there were a few sections where she was tired of being strapped into her seat, but for the most part she did really well. I sat in the back with her most of the trip and fed her cheerios and she drank water from her sippy cup, along with her regular bottles. I also ‘fed’ her toy after toy, watching as she gleefully dropped them on the other side of her seat where Mommy couldn’t reach.

Christmas Eve we arrived around bedtime, and enjoyed our traditional Christmas Eve fare of little smokies, cheese and sausage with crackers, and other yummies. Darci had a rough night the first night, she had a little trouble being out of her routine and in a new place. So she slept most of the night on Mommy, but that was ok, it’s been many months since we’ve done that.

In the morning Darci woke us with her usual 6:30 AM reveille and we joined Emily in the living room to see what Santa brought. He didn’t miss anyone in the house, there were stockings for each of us including Duke and Daisy. Darci got a sock monkey (so cute!), some crayola markers for little bitty hands, a couple of teething toys, and a baby’s first Christmas t-shirt, which I now realize we didn’t put on her! I guess there were too many things going on at once.

Gift opening commenced and wow, did Darci ever have a lot of presents. With four sets of Grandparents (Burns, Fox/Sacry, McCoy, and Great-grandparents Fox) she is one lucky little girl. She wasn’t too interested in opening the presents, but she did enjoy playing with the bows and of course playing with each toy after it was wrestled from the packaging. Lights and music were featured in many of her gifts.

I don’t know if I can list all of her toys from memory, but she got a ride on toy airplane with Elmo on it, the Playschool barn that makes animal sounds, a shape sorter bucket, the playschool chatter telephone and popper (classics!), some super adorable outfits, and a ton of books. She loves books and now has quite a nice library, mostly thanks to her Nana Fox. Thank you to everyone who gave her such cool presents, she has been enjoying all of them!

We all got to stay in our pjs for a while on Christmas, then into some nice clothes for an awesome Christmas dinner of prime rib, potatoes, scalloped corn, Amy’s amazing homemade apple and pumpkin pies. Darci had a few bites of corn, but her meal mainly consisted of a jar of turkey and veggies baby food, followed by cereal with yams. She wore her beautiful Christmas dress that Grandma and Grandpa Burns sent and we got some photos with Emily by the Christmas tree. Just by chance Emily had the same color dress as Darci!

We enjoyed post Christmas Chinese food the next night, after a day of pie for breakfast and a second chance at Christmas dinner for lunch. Thank you to Dad and Amy for hosting us, we had a great time! We headed home Sunday morning and had a nice drive, arriving just before dark. Darci did well in the car again, and this time she napped a bit more.

Now the bags are almost unpacked and the living room looks like a hurricane blew through a toy shop. It was a wonderful holiday; I wish we could have spent it with all the people we love.

Getting Taller

She's been growing pretty quickly still. Here is a comparison about a month apart. Her jumper was under her heels in early November, where she is facing the camera, and now the legs are up above her ankles in the other photo, taken last week. It's amazing how fast they grow.