Not a baby.

This is me at just 20 minutes old.  The first time I met my mommy.  She was warm and smelt of milk so I was happy.  As a newborn I was pretty much content whenever there was a boob in my mouth, but I'm not a baby any more!  I'm officially a one year old!  Now that I am so old and clever I can do a lot of things I wasn't able to do before.  Just a few days before my birthday I said my official first words, and they were, "quack! quack! quack! quack!" (though it sounded more like ka! ka! ka! ka! but I did the sign too.)  It's from one of my favourite songs, "5 little ducks."


After those initial first words
I started saying a lot of things at the same time-  "dog,"  "down,"  "done."  Lots, of D words, really. I have yet to say "mama" or "dada" but they know I love 'em anyway.  I'm learning new signs all the time, too!  I can now sign milk, eat, done, quack and book- and I have started following along with the actions of some of my favourite songs, which is pretty cute!

My birthday celebrations lasted nearly a whole week!  My party was the Saturday before and I got to spend it with lots of little ones and bigger ones from baby groups.

 
We had a great time playing and eating  some yummy cake!

 

 On my actual birthday I got to play with some more friends from baby group, then I went to messy play.  They let me in now because I am a big girl!  And I do love to get messy! I wore a dress made for me by the lovely Ursula of Daisy Jo's.

The weekend after my birthday was spent with my Grandma Julie, aunt Juliette and cousin Rubie.  We went out for a delicious curry (which I ate a surprising amount of considering the last time I ate curry it made me cry) with some friends and had a lovely time.



I'm growing up!  There are new little changes all of the time and it's an exciting world to explore. I am getting bigger, stronger, faster and more clever every day because  I've got a lot more explorin' to do! I'm not walking properly yet but I have been cruising for quite some time, I just haven't found the nerve to let go yet.  Mom says that's ok, I'm growing up too fast anyway. 

My food journey- the Baby Led Weaning way

My third sign word that I have learned is eat, which is fitting because I LOVE food!  (almost as much as I love milk but not quite).  Now I can tell people when I want to eat which is wonderful because crying doesn't always get the point across properly.

I was weaned the baby led way which means I always get to choose what goes into my mouth (and I put it in all by myself)!  I have been deciding when to eat and feeding myself since the very first time I latched on so mom and dad didn't see any reason to change the protocol just because real food was involved.





Here is me tasting one of my first real meals- banana pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries at 6 months old.  yummmmmmmy.











Here is one of my favourites- STEAK!  Who says you can't eat steak with no teeth?  I'm around 7 months old here.

The first foods I tried were chopped fruits and vegetables.  I didn't really eat much but I enjoyed sucking on them and getting used to brand new flavours.  At 5 1/2 months I was able to take spoonfuls of yoghurt with mashed banana from mom and put them in my mouth myself!  It was a proud moment all around!







Here is one of my messier moments.  It's kind of embarrassing but my aim did improve!

In the beginning some of my favourite foods were : greek yoghurt with banana, strawberries, cucumber, rice cakes or breadsticks with peanut butter, toast with fruit puree spread on top, oranges, and hummous. 

My first taste of juicy luscious tree ripened peachiness.  Lovely!

My tastes and preferences change on a daily basis but I'm usually happy to have some of whatever mom and dad are eating. 

 Here is me now at 11 months---

Now that I am practically an expert at feeding myself I can pick up little tiny peas and put them in my mouth (since around 8 months)! Some of my favourites are the same but I have new ones too- pasta, broccoli, peas,  chicken, beef, eggs, grapes and baked beans.  The first meal in which I ate what seemed like my body weight in food was daddy's lasagne.mmmmmmmmmmm.

my next goal is self- scooping so we best get the plastic tarp out!  Also letting mom and dad know when I'm done instead of just dropping everything on the floor, though I don't see what their problem is... it gets the point across, right?  Oh, and I just got another tooth the other day- bring on the steak!  :- D

Santa Baby

 We spent my very first Christmas with family Pownall.  It was great to share it with so many lovely people! 






Here is a picture of our tree and presents before we made the trip.  Our poor tree must have been very lonely over Christmas.

 On Christmas day I was dressed in a ridiculously cute santa costume that I got from grandma Julie- the type you can really only get away with wearing as a baby so I took advantage of that.

 Here is a picture of my mom and dad, and me!













We spent the morning opening a few presents with my mom, dad and gran.  It was exhausting work.












Then we spent the afternoon at uncle Gary's and aunt Juliette's house.  We had a lovely meal (I think my favourite part of the meal was the little trees, yummmmy, the big people call it brokileeve, i think), opened more presents :) and I got to watch everyone dancing on the wii.  I even got to join in on a few good dance numbers!  Plus they have the biggest most hugest tree I've ever seen- filled with such lovely sparkly things!!  It was beautiful!


Here is a picture of me and my gran watching the dancing queens (and kings).









 Opening the first few presents was all right, but then I just liked playing with the tags and what was inside, of course.

 I spent a lot of time playing with my cousin Rubie.  She is a wonderful cousin and is always teaching me new things like my second sign word (fish-because I love to watch the fish swimming around at grandma's house).  Plus, she's a great dancer.

I got some lovely toys for Christmas - I think I'm going to need a bigger toy box to hold them all!

Here is one of my hand puppets from grandpa.













Which tasted pretty great!

  Another gift I got is this bus shaped sorter.  I surprised everyone by showing that I already knew what to do with it!  (It may take a bit of time to put it in the RIGHT slot but I've got the general idea...)









I also got some great clothes like this snowsuit from grandpa.  Here is me with Rubie's snowman which, unfortunately, has seen better days. 

I want to thank everyone-friends and family- who helped make my first Christmas so special!

Wintertime things

 It's going to be my first Christmas this year so everybody is pretty excited about it.  Not me, though, because I don't even know what a Christmas is.  It must be pretty great with all this fuss.  We went to a Christmas market to find my first ever Christmas ornament- a handmade glass icicle.  I picked it out myself- I did a pretty great job, don't you think?




after that I went for a swing.  I do love
 swinging!  This is me showing how much I love swinging! 

Because of me mum and dad got a tree this year.  They were adamant that there would be no tree until I could appreciate it "properly" but caved a week before Christmas saying something about not wanting me to miss out on the "sparkly things."  I did enjoy the sparkly things- especially taking them off of the tree and seeing what sound they made when they dropped. 


Here is me inspecting the packages from America.



 

... and sitting pretty in front of said tree.

 I was also introduced to a fascinating thing- snow!  My mum was far too lazy and cold to take me out in the snow for my first exploration (she says) so she brought it in to me to have a play.  I have to say I had a pretty great time- snow is amazing stuff- and I can't wait for it to snow again as mum says she will take me out to roll about in it!  YAY!

Growing up.

Well, I'm nearing 11 months old now so I figured it was time to give this blogging thing a go.  I'm pretty much a genius already so I didn't think it would be too hard. 

This is me.  Everyone says I'm pretty cute.  I have to believe them- what do I know?  I'm just a baby! 

My mom wanted me to write down a few of the things I could do.  I don't know why- adults can be so pedantic sometimes.  But because I'm nice I will. I've been clapping and dancing for a while now- I do like to have a boogie.  I also love books.  When my mum or dad finishes reading a book for me I point to the bookcase and giggle to let them know one just isn't enough!  I have to admit they are a bit lacking in the plot department.  In one of them a kid goes through the whole book looking for his monkey and only finds the right one at the end.  But they have nice pictures and they taste good so what's not to like? 

I can also make the sign for "milk" which is one of my favourite things ever!  I guess you can consider it my first word since I can't really talk yet.  I'm getting there, though, and I can make some pretty amazing high pitched sounds!  Food is another one of my favourite things and since I was weaned the baby-led way it means I never had to have any yucky baby purées.  I always got to eat the good stuff that mom and dad were eating.  I'm doing pretty well now that I have 4 teeth but I like to keep the adults on their toes by changing my preferences on a daily basis! 

I'm practising my walking skills and I'm great at pulling myself up.  I've also learned how to let go- which always ends in tears.  But the cuddles that follow are nice so I just go and do it again!

Well, I can smell my dinner cooking now so I'm going to go now.  Will write more later.