11 month update

We can't believe that in only one month, our little baby will be a year old! This month Amanda has really increased her mobility. Her favourite thing is to cruise around, and around, and around the living room and upstairs hallway, holding on to the furniture or walls. She also loves to be in the kitchen (which can be kind of irritating!) and throws the plastic containers all over the floor on a regular basis. She can stand on her own now, although she doesn't realize it yet - she will occasionally do it by accident, but then when she realizes she's not holding on, she clutches at whatever is in front of her! She is also an excellent walker, but not quite on her own yet. She can walk with her toy walkers, or holding on to a finger (even just a single finger). We think she will probably be walking on her own in the next week or two, but our guess is definitely by her birthday. She has now progressed to mostly table foods. She still has baby cereal, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast (to help keep her iron up), but eats lots of "big people" foods at her other meals. She loves the little fruity yogurt cups and is still crazy about her Baby Mum-Mum crackers. And banana is our secret weapon - even if she acts full (after having a really tiny meal), we can usually get her to eat a whole banana afterwards! And she will eat anything mixed with banana (even ground beef - yuck! That's one of Daddy's concoctions). We are still a bit concerned about her weight - she lost a bit more this month, although mid-month weighings showed that she actually had dipped down well below 19 lbs, so at least she has regained from that. The doctor isn't too worried, but we're trying to make sure she gets lots of food in her at every feeding. We are going ahead with introducing most foods now, although we will still wait on eggs, honey, and milk until one year, and nuts until at least 18 months. Her second tooth finally came in - after 3 weeks of teething! - so now she has a matched set on the bottom. After only a few days of respite (i.e., improved sleep), she started teething on the next ones, although we haven't figured out yet which ones will be next (it looks like she may even get another bottom tooth before the top ones? Who knows). The good news: if given ibuprofen in the evening to deal with the teething pain, Amanda will now give us full nights of sleep fairly regularly - usually 10-12 hours. Hooray!!