Eleven Month Report

Actually, this is the eleven month and eleven day report--sorry about that! For some reason, the past couple of weeks have seemed more hectic than others. Maybe it had something to do with that returning to teaching thing I decided to do. Oh well, I guess late is sometimes better than never.

On December 23, Dani took her first steps! She went from standing in November to assisted walking early in December to taking a couple of steps. It was a wonderful early Christmas present. Now, she much prefers walking to crawling. It is absolutely adorable to watch her toddle around the playroom, the family room, her crib--anywhere I let her walk.

Lillie is still cruising and crawling with great speed. I've caught her standing on her own for a second or two, and she's started walking assisted by only one hand instead of two. I think she'll get that walking thing down soon enough. She doesn't seem to care so much, though, that her sister is doing something she's not.

More and more I've been letting them play on their own. I'll put them in the playroom and eat breakfast or fold laundry. It seems that not having me as a distraction all the time is making them find each other funny. A couple of weeks ago, they were in their play yard while I went upstairs to get dressed, and I heard lots and lots of giggling. I figured Tim had taken a quick break to come play with them, but when I came downstairs, they were just sitting feet to feet passing a toy back and forth and laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. I do hope that they keep it up and become the best of friends.

They're also showing signs of wanting to drop to one nap a day. They're still getting tired in the morning, but it's been later, so I've been putting them down for a nap later. Then, when afternoon naptime rolls around, they both fight it like the plague. In fact, I don't believe Dani has taken her second nap for over a week. I really didn't want to go to one nap just yet, but hey, I can't dictate that so much. I've finally decided to slowly push the morning nap later and later because the idea of them staying up from 11:30 to 6 is just craziness. I almost went for a random drive yesterday just to get them to nap.

With all this added mobility and extended awake time, I realize even more that the playroom shouldn't be the only baby-proofed room in the house. We took steps when they began crawling to remove breakables and add cushions and cover all the outlets, but it's just not enough now. I've put together some plans for the family room to make it more baby friendly because our current solution of moving everything from the table to the very small space on top of our DVD cabinets just isn't really working. Storage solutions that are at least four feet off the ground are definitely necessary!