11 months old today!

I can't believe it! We're only one month away from Beni being a year old!!! Where does the time go?

Well, here's what Beni's up to these days...

She's standing on her own, without holding on to anything, more and more confidently. She won't really do it if you try to force her though. She'll only do it when she's not really thinking about it. She'll be standing there playing with a toy or something and then she'll let go, and just stand for a few seconds... it doesn't last long. Every once in a while if you catch her just standing and you clap and smile for her and say encouraging words, she'll stand for longer. It's pretty cool. The other day, she also took a pivoting step just from the couch to her play table...her one foot didn't even move, but still. It was something. I think some of the time when she is just standing there you can almost see it in her eyes that she's thinking she should just walk...but then of course she drops down and crawls. :) It'll be interesting to see how long it takes until she's walking. I really wouldn't be surprised if it's quite a while still, but we'll see!


The worst thing she is doing right now (RIGHT NOW!) that is driving me bonkers is gnashing/grinding her teeth! Oh it's horrible! I've seen her do it with her mouth open- she moves her lower jaw all the way over, and then brings her teeth together so that the sides of her top and bottom teeth scrape against each other. It is a horrible sound. I keep telling her to stop, but, she doesn't listen. :)

She is sleeping... better and worse. Her naps are on schedule- 9am and 1pm every day give or take 10 mins. But the length of her naps varies from 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Both extremes are pretty rare and generally she's right on for 45 minutes. The totally random 90 minute days are AWESOME, but very, very rare. Sometimes I try to catch the moment when she about to wake up and lay down with her and get her to keep sleeping, but, it's only worked a couple times. At night, she goes down fairly easily, and sometimes stays asleep for hours...like 4 or 5. She definitely still wakes up to nurse though. She is starting the night out in her own bed (a mattress on the floor next to our bed), and then she joins us in bed sometime after midnight- sometimes just after midnight, sometimes around two, and once not until four!

Beni has always been very observant and into the details of things. When we go on our play dates she loves to watch the other babies and moms. She examines toys very closely and touches them all over. These days she is re-examining some of her own toys, checking them out, seeing how she can use the differently and so on. She's been spending a lot of time reading her books, looking very closely at the pictures, exploring all the different textures that some of them have.

Beni is doing a lot of talking these days... to the point where I often find myself wondering, "Did she just say...???" Her receptive language skills are obvious... she'll react to some questions or directions. She is also using a few signs... she is waving bye-bye again (she'd stopped for a while, she does it without prompting now), she signs for nursing, for more (when she's eating). I guess that is it. She's very verbal though- first words do not seem far away.

She's very easily offended these days. She's definitely learning to express her like and dislike. She hates closed doors right now and will sit and scream at and hit the door- even if someone else is on the same side of the door with her. Last night after work Joel decided to take a quick shower. I was out in the living room, but Beni decided to crawl down the hall and sit in front of the bathroom door crying and hitting the door.

She's eating much better than ever. She seems to not be a huge fan of thick textures, so we're working on getting her used to those. She will still eat stage 1 purees that are ultra smooth and she will eat finger foods, but she doesn't like the in-betweens. Her favorite foods right now are black beans, cheese (she gets shredded cheddar, and she likes parmesan on pasta) and Vegemite on crackers. She also just had olives for the first time and seemed to like that well enough. She definitely seems to like salty foods. That said, she has also been eating yogurt- I guess the only thick food she'll eat. Sadly, I buy her the only baby one I can get here, and the second ingredient is sugar....it's probably not even yogurt. But she likes it. When we get back to the States I'll be buying her better quality stuff! At this point we are not doing as well as I would like on eating fruits and veggies... but we'll keep working on it! I have been making her purees (combinations of apple, carrot, butternut squash and more) so she does get her veggies in there. She really liked some of the "green" baby foods we had once upon a time, but, we ran out of those forever ago, and I haven't gotten anything else green into her since. Sigh.

She has 4 teeth and more on the way. Her incisors all seem to be working their way in now. They always seem to be bothering her. It's pretty cool to hear her eat a cracker though- with four teeth in she can now properly crunch right through one! :)

So, all in all, she's a happy baby. She's healthy and often smiling. Can't wait to get her around everyone we're going to see in the next few months! We're all very much looking forward to it! :)