11 month state of the Willa address

Just one month to go in her first year!  Just looking at this picture I'm astounded by how much she has grown.  Gone are the days when I had to prop her up and shoot very quickly before she slid down in this chair.  She has even started posing a little, since she has gotten to know this routine after 11 times in the hot seat.  Excuse me while I get a little emotional!

So, her stats.  As of this picture she had taken her first steps (November 28th) while she was playing with me on the floor.  She was cruising on the chaise part of our sectional and walked over to me where I was sitting on her playmat.  It was two or three steps together, and I screamed in excitement!  She did it a couple more times that day, but silly me, I forgot to get my camera out in favor of staying present with her.  So that moment will exist in my memory :-).  She still wasn't confident enough to walk spontaneously, but every once in a while we could get her to walk while her hands were occupied or she was surrounded with people.

She hasn't cut any new teeth, but given her sleep regression, I thought that she must have by now!  For about a month and a half she started to get up every two hours again, wanting to eat.  At least once a week she would wake up and refuse to go back to sleep for the next two hours.  Those were dark weeks, y'all.  We were all SO tired, all the time.  It got difficult to follow my clients in session, and I unloaded my woes on my coworkers almost every day.  This continued until December 20th or so, but I'll fill you in on all that in her 12 month post!

She is still nursing a lot, but she has started to love saltines, cheese, and yogurt more than anything else.  Seriously, I can get a whole meal eaten while she chows down on cheese and crackers!  She has learned how to sign her own versions of "more" and "all done," and I am very excited to be clearly communicating with her.  She always smiles super big when we do, so I think she does as well!

She now has a couple of words, "up" and "mama," and Jeremy is working very hard to get her to say "dada."  Sadly, she's actually closer to "puppy" and "ball," but we'll blame that on phonetics not affinity!

Our little miss is growing like crazy, I can't wait to celebrate her first birthday very soon!