eloise {month eleven}

{lion: jellycat via nordstrom // tank & bloomers: Gymboree // moccasins: Freshly Picked}

{this picture is brought to you, in part, by eloise’s nursery clock/sound machine without which I would not have gotten a non-blurry picture &/or one without eloise launching herself head first off the front end of the chair. holy hannah. see my note about toddler below.}

{month eleven} good grief, eleven months? in some ways it is so hard to believe that we are approaching one year of life, but in other ways, eloise is more & more like a toddler. did I really just say that?

the toddler-like behavior to which I am referring is the “baby tantrums” that eloise is starting to throw when she doesn’t get what she wants. usually this manifests because eloise wants to chew (or hold or throw) something that she shouldn’t & I take it away from her. yep, the worst.

eloise loves to stand & cruise all along the coffee table, couch, & anything & everything she can pull up to standing on. she is so much more steady on her feet these past few weeks & I am predicting she will be walking (at least a little bit) by her first birthday. a big shock to a mama who was convinced her little one wasn’t going to be walking for a few more months!

even with all of the (assisted) walking, eloise is still really into crawling. while her army crawl has been mastered & she is lightning fast, just in the past few days she has really started crawling on her hands & knees. she was doing this before when she was getting close to something she wanted to pull up on, but now she is up off her belly more & more. she definitely isn’t as fast though & if she needs to get moving, she will drop down to her belly & army crawl! in terms of getting around, eloise has figured a lot of things out. she will start at her playmat on one end of the living room, crawl over to the coffee table or couch, pull up to standing & cruise along (walking) until she gets to the end of either of those, then she will drop down to sitting & crawl to her final destination (usually the kitchen, & usually sadie’s dog bowls…).

the past week maybe, eloise has begun to stick out her tongue (think Albert Einstein). she knew about her tongue months ago when she learned to blow raspberries, but now the tongue is back in full force. she is constantly sticking out her tongue & it is pretty funny. I think it may have something to do with all of the drool suddenly that has started. I will look over & eloise’s entire chin is covered in drool. lovely. & the drool, I believe, is from teeth. specifically lower molars (right-side). it is slightly early for molars to be coming in, but her dentist warned that since eloise got so many teeth so early, we could expect the same for molars. the teething hasn’t been awful, but we are thinking it has something to do with the fussiness at bedtime & one or two times in the middle of the night. while eloise usually just wants her pacifier & her lovie (which she has rolled away from) in the night, bedtime takes a lot more attention now with a few trips down to the nursery to retrieve her pacifier or give an extra snuggle.

eating is going well still & eloise is enjoying everything we are feeding her. lately I have been focusing on (& have been successful at) feeding eloise what we are eating at dinnertime. sometimes this is a challenge because of the type of food that we are eating (for example, aaron’s homemade pizza can be tricky for me to make baby-friendly) & also because I am still neurotic about organic food for eloise (& aaron & I don’t eat everything organic). but, when I do get it to work, it is so easy & awesome, & it means less clean-up & eating together as a family (if eloise isn’t eating what we are, she generally eats before we do in the kitchen while I prep aaron & my dinner).

speaking of eating, eloise’s new thing in regards to food is wanting to rip everything into tiny little pieces. I have started giving her larger pieces of food because she can bite or chew a lot of things these days (either with her front teeth or with her back gums) & that seems to be her preference. if I give her a tortilla, rice cracker, sandwich, she holds it between her two hands & rips it apart, eating only small pieces.

eloise LOVES sadie. always has & always will, but these days eloise’s mobility has meant that she gets a lot more opportunity to be near sadie. on occasion, sadie will stick around when eloise comes close & even let eloise pet her. we are trying to teach eloise to not only be gentle with sadie when she touches or pets, but also to respect sadie’s space. eloise is curious about sadie’s two crates (the one under the stairs & the other in our bedroom). on a few occasions sadie has been sleeping in her crate & eloise has crawled up to the gate, leaving sadie without an escape & sadie has growled or even barked. eloise hasn’t seemed to mind, but it has been a good reminder for aaron & me that sadie is protective of her own space & we need to set boundaries for eloise.

while it isn’t all the time, there are definite moments where eloise shows separation anxiety or a strong preference for either mama or papa. after waking up in the morning, after naptime, or at bedtime (when there is nursing or milk involved) eloise has a very strong preference for me. sometimes she will cry or fuss if I am not there & won’t stop until I do get there, or she will be fine with aaron until she sees or hears me & then starts to fuss. & recently I have noticed that if eloise is up & sees aaron before he leaves for work, she fusses when he leaves. also, eloise likes other people & doesn’t show signs of stranger danger, but often doesn’t like to spend too long in someone else’s arms if I am nearby. she would much rather have me hold her & interact with the other person from my arms.

one thing that we have been working on with eloise (but knew it would take months for eloise to learn) is sign language. we have kept it simple: milk, more, water, eat, & please. eloise knows the sign for water & will reach out for her cup during mealtime if you sign water to her. while eloise sometimes waves her fingers near her head when she wants water (which is sort of close to the actual sign), she often will hit her bib with her hand when she wants water (which I am assuming is from me signing please after water). the other way eloise lets us know she wants water (or more food) is to yell & hit her tray with her hand. not the best, but effective! she also knows milk & will stare at or grab at my shirt if she wants to nurse. since we nurse after eloise sleeps & that is consistent, I use the milk sign mostly to ask if eloise wants more milk; she likes to take breaks during nursing to read books (or I will do a diaper change) & so I will sign to her to see if she still has interest in nursing for longer.

{weight} 21 pounds.

{hair} dark reddish brown.

{teeth} bottom two teeth & four top teeth.

{eyes} dark brown. (but look dark grey sometimes!)

{clothes}  6 to 12 month, 12 month, & some 12 to 18 month.

{diapers} full-time cloth {bum genius freetime, pocket, & elemental} & honest company size 4 diapers at night with a bum genius diaper cover.

{feeding} during the day, 4 hour cycles. eloise started drinking only 2 to 4 oz at bedtime, so we split that milk feeding in half; she gets 2 oz in a cup at dinnertime & the other half at bedtime in a bottle.

{likes} books, anything she isn’t supposed to have, toys that squeak or rattle, singing & music, Sadie, standing, FaceTime, bathtime, pulling up to standing (on everything). 

{dislikes} getting her face wiped off (after eating), sitting still, (most) diaper changes before nursing, sitting in her highchair & not eating if she is in her highchair, the vacuum.

{nicknames} Bug{s}, Love Bug, Baby Bug, E, Wheezy, Kiddo, Love, Bugaboo, Ellie or Elle (my family).

happy eleven months eloise!

M

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