11 months - baby filled days

it's great fun hanging out with baby on weekends. every sunday evening i find myself looking forward to the next baby-filled weekend. 

with baby being rather steady on her feet right now, she is going everywhere in the house on the own. she also loves walking about in the library, the nearby playgrounds, and nearly broke into a run on several occasions while we were at the zoo. we're lucky to have had minimal scraped knees so far! 

baby's turning one in a few days' time and going through her photos from the time she was born, i am awed at how she has changed and grown so much in such a short time. it has probably been the most tiring yet happiest year of my life too.

got (breast)milk? stories - almost a year

have been slowly winding down the pumping now that baby is used to formula milk. plus it has felt like a bit of a waste of time to be pumping so often when i sometimes get only 1-2oz per 7-8 hour interval. and sometimes i am too tired to fit in two pumping sessions after baby sleeps at night. maybe it's just the tedium of having to juggle work and baby that is getting to me.

so yes, i am welcoming baby's first birthday because it also marks when i am going to stop this whole pumping business. HURRAY! the only negative of winding down cow duties is that i lose one intensive calorie burning activity and have to adjust my eating habits to ensure there's no weight gain. haven't been very successful with this though, especially after a year of being able to eat whatever i want in whatever quantity. :P

11 months - the toddling toddler

baby is officially a toddler now! it's really cute how she toddles along with tiny steps all over the house ... from the living room all the way to the kitchen. that's how steady she is with her walking. she seems to enjoy being able to walk, as she always pushes herself up to walk rather than crawl nowadays. thankfully being carried still is her preferred mode of transport, so i don't yet have to deal with a wriggly baby trying to get out of my arms so that she can do her own walking and exploring. last night was really a taste of what some other parents probably go through on a daily basis - baby decided she would not sleep even though it was WAY past her bedtime. she was more content playing and crawling about in the dark (with lights off) than to sleep. yes, my little night owl for a day. she ended up sleeping at 11pm after YET another bottle of milk (that's 14oz of milk before bedtime in total!). i hope that her sudden late night alertness had to do with the fact that she had a long afternoon nap that ended at 6pm, and that this is a one-off event. i can only have kids that sleep by 8pm for 12 hours or more. i don't think i have it in me to handle kids that don't love their nighttime sleep. i'd be a very cranky person if so. 

11 months - how did we get here?

baby's turning a year old in less than a month's time. how did this happen, and where did time go? how is it that she went from being tiny and wrinkly to becoming a little person with her own emotions and ways of expressing herself in a short span of 11 months? just today, we watched as baby took many wobbly steps all around the house, looking all pleased with herself at her newfound mobility. she still prefers walking around with her push wagon though, as she probably gets to where she wants to faster. but wow, she can walk. she can stack rings on top of each other. she can climb the sofa in the living room. when i say "throw away", she will bring whatever i pass her (e.g. her soiled diaper) to the waste paper bin and drop the item into the bin. she knows when she has done something right, or has answered a question correctly as she will clap for herself. she's such a special baby. i don't know if she's developing faster than other babies her age as i don't have many other babies to compare with, but she is definitely growing up faster than i would have imagined. they really don't stay as babies for very long. she's a little big girl now.