11 months

Dear Emma Kate,

How did this happen?  I blinked twice, maybe only once, and you have been with us now for 11 months.  My goodness, this is zooming so fast.  It makes my mama heart sad knowing your littleness is gone forever, and knowing that the next 18 years will fly past as well, but it makes my mama heart happy each and every day as I watch you grow and learn.

You are quite the little girl!  And you have so many people who just adore you.  There is no other way to say that.

This month you are standing alone really well and have just begun to take one or two steps as long as you have something ahead of you that you can grab onto.  I know as soon as you get the courage to go, you will be all over the place!

You are talking up a storm too.  You attempt to repeat many words when told what something is, but you can plain-as-day-say mama, dada, ash, night night, horse, ball, bye-bye.  You can almost-plain-as-day-say Grace, cat, I love you, bath.

You love music, singing, and dancing.  You sway back and forth singing a precious little “la-la” when its a soft song, and you bounce up and down and throw in some Elvis legs when you really want to get down.

You are a serious child mostly, and only let loose around people you feel comfortable with.  In a strange place around unfamiliar people, you study and watch and observe.

Climbing is your thing.  You climb on anything you can easily reach, and you think it’s great fun to get in small spaces like cabinets or to sit on things like boxes.

You celebrated your first Christmas and learned pretty quickly what that was all about.  Of course it took a while and you wanted to stop and play with all your toys.  You loved each and every one, except the pony we got you!  It is a bit scary to you for now.

Sleeping.  It just isn’t happening still.  You my dear, will sleep when you’re old I guess.  Its a struggle; not to get you to go to sleep, but to get you to stay asleep.  We’ve tried it all, and the best I can figure is you do best with a routine and  lately that isn’t happening with the holidays and traveling and moving to a new state.  I hope soon it will all settle down and become normal again.

We went to see your favorite book, Pete the Cat’s author at a school where I used to work and you are all but old enough to start going to school.  You loved the children and when he started reading “I Love My White Shoes”, you crawled towards the stage and sat attentively.  It was so cute!

Even though you are super cute, setting limits is our next job with you it appears.  You have started doing some things that mama and daddy don’t think are so cute.  Like throwing fits and food.  As much as we’d love to let you have everything you want, it would turn you into a brat, and brats aren’t any fun to be around.  There will be times when it seems like we’re being mean, but we’re only loving you the best we can.

I love you so much!  The past 11 months have been a joy for me.  I’m trying to take it all in.  I can’t slow down time, as much as I wish I could, but each day I’m trying to make last.

xoxo,

Mama