Angelfish, almost eleven months

SLEEP!!!  My God glorious glorious SLEEP!  She has finally finally learned to sleep through the night. Ever since Thanksgiving, she has slept from about 7 p.m. through at least 4 a.m. and often as late as 6 a.m.  I am getting more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep at night for the first time since January.  Thank you, thank you for blessed sleep. I know it will all change again in April, so I am grateful to have it now.
That said, she and I have less time together now.  And that makes me sad.

She associates my arrival home with dinner time.  Evening routine is now pretty much dinner, play, bottle, change, bed.  I tend to bathe her in the mornings because we like our evening play time.  Our mornings tend to be a little harried, but not too bad because my commute is much shorter than it was last year.  She gets a little Clownfish play time most mornings while I get dressed.  My getting dressed is pretty much the last thing on the morning "to do" list. I really hope I don't forget that step one day and hop into the car with my hair in a towel and body wrapped in a bathrobe.  Clownfish would probably let me do it, too.  

Angelfish points to people. It makes her happy when you touch her finger with yours and say "E.T."

Snaggletooth is no more.  She cut two more on top.  Her six-tooth smile is still kind of the lop-sided jack-o-lantern variety, and I love it.

They're trying to teach her some baby sign at the daycare center.  They say she's pretty good at it there.  I'm trying to reinforce "more" and "all done" at home.  Occasionally she'll do it, with prompting.  Really.  But more often, her sign for "more" is to yell and slam her hands on the high chair, and "all done" is throwing food on the floor.
Still pulling herself up on furniture, and has finally started to employ some horizontal cruising.  Otherwise, she drops down and crawls and pulls up to a new spot when she needs to move.  Her favorite activities involve banging things together and/or onto tables while standing.

This morning, for the first time, she let me read her a book without having to hold onto/chew another book/toy. She also helped me turn the pages and touched and pointed to things as we went through.

Today, she's got a runny nose and a doctor's appointment because we suspect pinkeye. Yuck. 

Note: This post was written over the course of about two weeks... so you'll see the food stuff is inconsistent as she goes from enjoying new things to tasting stuff & then throwing it because she'd prefer fruit. 

She loves loves to try new food.  Bullshark took us out for Korean food for a treat -- I gave her just about everything that wasn't wicked spicy or raw fish, and she loved it. Sticky rice and dumplings for the win.  We've fed her some Mexican and Italian-type food at home, also successfully.  Thanksgiving food was a huge hit.  Turkey, sweet potatoes, peas, mashed potatoes.... yum.  I took her out to brunch with one of my friends and ordered a Cobb salad, and instead of eating the baby food I brought for her, she pretty much ate everything that makes that salad good -- avocado, boiled egg, cheese, chicken, tomato pieces.  I enjoyed eating the plain Romaine... really.     

The downside of broadening her baby palate is she completely rebels at plain baby oatmeal now.  Sticks out her tongue, spits it out.  Add a little cinnamon, though, and its game on.  Same with plain pasta -- she wants a little tomato sauce or butter & basil.  Also, cheerios have lost some of their appeal, probably because they're boring-flavored.  She'll still eat them, but I have to give her some fruit or something yummy first, and then she'll snack on cheerios begrudgingly while I try to make her lunch or cram some breakfast down my throat.

She's also started to rebel against baby food in general, which stinks because we've taken to relying on one pureed dinner jar a day to ensure she gets protein and veg.  Canned fruit and eggs are pretty much our staples now.  Lately she's rejected most of whatever Bullshark has made for dinner, and I end up improvising.  But I'd rather her have a full belly so she sleeps. Sleep!! 

Also, Bullshark bought some of those overnight super-absorbent diapers because, now that she's not getting a middle of the night diaper change, she wakes up soaked to the skin all over.

Two words:  Epic. Fail.