11 Months

(Testing the strength of the wire holding the grape vines up). You deemed it strong enough).

Dear Lily,

Yesterday, you turned 11 months old. You've developed a few nicknames, Lily Magoo, Lily Loo, Lily McNilly (and Lil McNill), Peachlet, Porkchop, Punkin' Head and many, many more.

You've been testing the limits a lot these days, getting yourself into trouble. You are investigating every nook and cranny of the house and, unfortunately, finding lots of the asian lady beetles which have found their way into the house.  At least once a day we find you picking one off the floor and if we are lucky, we wrestle it away from you before it ends up in your mouth. It is funny because you really don't put much stuff in your mouth, but those beetles are irresistible to you. They smell SO bad, they have to taste just as bad!

Yesterday, you said "da da" for the first time. Today, you've been saying it over and over and over. You even pointed at daddy one time when you said it, so hopefully you understand who da da is.

Other things we want to remember about this age:

-Your third tooth has started to erupt from your gums. You think it is really funny to grind it against your bottom two teeth but it makes mommy and daddy cringe.
-You would spend all day long in the bath if we let you. You go into the bathroom and slap the bathtub and look at us like "'C'mon guys! I want a bath!".
-When on the bed, you love to fall backwards onto your back. You think this is SO funny.
-You climbed all the way to the top of grandma and grandpa's spiral staircase (with mommy protectively hovering over you, of course).
-You've finally gotten back to sleeping through the night again. Yay!!!!!!
-Daddy has been introducing you to venison, but mommy gave you some seitan and you really liked that, too. There is hope for you to be a vegetarian yet!
-You absolutely LOVE pushing things. You pushed the grocery cart all around the supermarket yesterday. People were doing double takes and laughing when they figured out how the cart seemed to be moving all by it's self. You are so tiny, it looks really funny to see you pushing the whole cart full of groceries. You giggle the whole time you are pushing.
-You were scared to death of walking on the grass when we first got you out on it this spring. It has been so snowy and muddy this winter, you had not gotten a chance to walk outside much. Now that it is dry and you've gotten so much better at walking, you've been trying it out. At first, you cried every time we'd set you down on it. I think you just cannot figure out the grass. Your feet are used to carpet, linoleum and wood floors.

Here is a little video of you pretending to be Gretel (from Hansel and Gretel). Chloe likes it when you do this.