Sweet Josephine: Josie {11 Months}

Well, I lied. But, in my defense, I honestly did not know that I was lying at the time. You see, I ended my last post with “Next Up: Josie 10 Months”, yet here I am today and she is 6 days past 11 months. Oh well. Life gets in the way.

Josie, today you are 11 months and 6 days old and you have changed so so so much since I last blogged about you a few months ago. You went from hardly mobile at all, like hardly ever even rolling over, to all over the place! You started crawling around 10 months and suddenly you are also all over the place in your crib. You went from this every night:

To this, in a matter of days:

It was NOT a gradual transition! And walking is clearly around the corner. You pull yourself up on everything and you love when we hold your hands and help you walk on your own.

As of today, if we were to put you in a disposable diaper, you would wear a 4. In your cloth diapers, we have you on the second level of snaps and it will probably still be a little while before we move you to level 3. You are totally out of all your 9 month clothes and in all 12 months and even 18 months for bottoms depending on the brand. Your diaper has always made it hard for you to ever wear the appropriate size on the bottom. You can still wear Old Navy/GAP size 6-12 months in some things but you are in 12-18 for most of their clothes (mama’s favorite stores for you).

You have 6 teeth technically, two middle bottom, two front and then you have one on each side of your front teeth. However, I say “technically” because the two on the side of the front teeth are just barely out of your gums so they are not very visible but we can definitely feel them! You are a wonderful teether - other than some low fevers and some extra drooling, we hardly notice when you have teeth coming in.

Over the past few months we have started to add more and more soft finger foods to your day and you love it all! Just this weekend we discovered the ONE thing that you will turn your nose up to - mushrooms. Mom and dad don't like them either! But anyway, I cannot even say what your favorite is because you give the same reaction for everything.

We still give you 3 bottles of formula per day but you are becoming less enthralled with them. Where we used to never have any left in a bottle, we sometimes have an ounce or two that you refuse to finish. I think it is because we give you too much food and you probably don’t need all that formula! We just started to give you 2 ounces of hormone-free cow’s milk with 4 ounces of formula so that we can hopefully give you a smooth transition to cow’s milk when you turn one year. So far, so good – you don’t seem to notice!

Your personality is definitely becoming more and more apparent. You are still one of the happiest, smiley-est babies I know but In the last few months you have developed this sassy little scowl face. We cannot quite figure out what it means. Sometimes it seems to mean that you are just not happy with a situation, sometimes it seems it is because you don’t know someone’s face and sometimes it seems to mean that you are trying to figure something out. There are two things that you HATE ALL THE TIME. Getting put on the changing table (you cry when we are approaching it) and getting dried off after a bath.

You are babbling up a storm and trying very, very hard to say a lot of things but you are not quite there yet. It is soooo cute to watch the little wheels spin on your face as you think about trying to say something. You are trying to say “book” and you definitely know what to grab when we ask you. You have tried to say dog, up and out (we think) but they are not quite recognizable yet. You will be talking our ears off before we know it.

You are pretty much done with the exersaucer, which has been one of your best friends for quite a few months now, and you are now in love with the Fisher Price play table.

Sorry - Last time we took a pic of you in the exersaucer was apparently 5 months ago and the second picture is a little blurry but it is the best one we have with you and your table right now!

All other toys seem to take a distant second and you like them all the same. You are a big fan of books and we often find you on the floor “reading” to yourself. Mama really, really hopes that it is a sign of one of your future hobbies!

Lastly, I think your favorite thing in the world right now has to be your binky. In your short life, you have spent very little time without it at your immediate disposal and it is starting to show. A few weeks ago, you woke up at 5am crying and not going back to sleep (VERY unlike you) and we realized that it was because you could not find your binky. Then yesterday we went out and forgot to clip it to you so the whole car ride home you cried! This whole time we just thought you were a happy little baby and it turns out it was all because you love your binky oh so much! See below – you are never without it!