Eleven Months

People, next month my baby will be 1. That's 12 months old, 366 days (it was a leap year), and 52 weeks. Where oh where has the time gone?! In order for Claire to get to 12 months, she had to turn 11 months. Today was that day! Happy 11 month birthday to my sweetie.

At 11 months, Claire :

::dances every.single.time she hear music, including church. She loooves to move her head back and forth. It is especially silly when she is crawling and music will start playing. She is on her hands and knees and sways her head and her bootie to the music. She has some mad skills, this one does!

::went on her first airplane ride. She did so awesome! She didn't seem to have ear problems and wasn't too unhappy at all. A man told us as we were getting off in Spokane, "Your baby is an angel. We have an almost 2 year old and I know he wouldn't have been that great." Yep, I know it.

::will point at us really excitedly. Funny story, on the plane Brent put Claire on the floor between his legs and she was standing up. She looked up and pointed at Brent as if to say "Hey! You are my dad and you are here! How long have you been sitting there?" Then she looked at me and did the same thing. It was hilarious.

::makes sounds that are starting to sound like actual words and really wants to talk. She will hold conversations with us like she knows what we are saying and we know what she is saying. I can't wait to be able to know what she is talking about. I am confident that she is going to have lots to say.

::walks around holding on to things. Claire will walk all around the couch and walk all around the playpen just grinning. Grandma Jackson made a huge deal about her walking around this morning and she was loving it.

::can run! Uncle Tio (Uncle Chris) was helping her walk and then he started running. She was pumping her little legs trying to keep up and she was laughing.

::takes a little while to warm up to people. The trick is to give her some sort of food and then she likes you pretty quickly after that.

::has 8 teeth. When I was 1, I only had 4 teeth so she definitely got her tooth growing ability from her daddy.

::is getting better at sitting down from standing. She used to just fall backwards and hit really hard. Now she is bending her knees and plopping down more gently.

::eats big people food occasionally. We will try to give her at least some portion of our meals and she loves it. We haven't really found anything yet that she hates so I'm hoping she won't be too picky.

Dear Claire,
I am crazy about you, Kid. You are hilarious and so much fun. I love seeing you explore the world around you. We came to Washington for Christmas this year and you have had a blast exploring Grandma's and Grandpa's houses. I was talking to Ellyne the other day and she was telling me how she couldn't believe you were going to be a year old next month. I couldn't believe it either. Time has flown but I'm so glad you are getting bigger, stronger, and smarter. It's fun to watch.
Love,
Mom