Q - 11 Months

From our family photoshoot

Our Quinn is 11 months old! She is going to be one in just a month. We can't believe it! It has been a busy, busy month. Quinn is having a great time learning to be a big girl - and Fiona is happy to show her the ropes. She is looking less like a baby and more like the toddler she is turning into. I'm sure these 11 months took the same amount of time, but man, it feels like she is growing up so much faster than Fiona! I guess that is what happens when you are already going warp speed to keep up with the toddler.

This month, Quinn's highlights include:

• Self-feeding - not just food anymore! She drinks her bottles by herself too and is so proud. She has pretty much decided she is done with nursing. She will still sort of do the morning and she'll snuggle in at night (my favorite), but other than that, she wants independence. In somewhat related news, I brought my pump to work today but didn't use it! Think good thoughts for the freezer stock to hold out for the last month.
• Walking - oh, you know, she can walk across a room by herself! She cruises everywhere and almost always tries to walk to get places. As soon as she falls, she crawls. But she is totally working it. And Fiona is a great cheerleader / tackler!
• New car seats - we didn't take the infant car seat out of my car the entire 4th of July weekend. Which moved us from slightly annoyed at hauling it around to incredibly bitter at its existence. At almost 11 months, that sucker was getting heavy. Armed with two 20% coupons this weekend, we hit Babies R Us and Fiona is the proud owner of two new car seats. Q is the proud

  

  Always standing

  occupant of "new" hand-me-down car seats. It's tough to be the little sister! But she doesn't seem to mind and is enjoying the new digs.
• Playground exploration - she'll climb a slide, She'll crawl through the tunnels endlessly. And sandboxes and swings are wicked fun. Life at the park is good!
• Words - SO many words. We still don't catch them all, but she definitely says (in addition to mama and dada) shoe, cup, bath, slide, cracker, and yes. She also says "aaaahhhhh" when you say "should we brush teeth?" And she is still SUPER loud in all her chatter. She makes her presence known. And with that wonderful smile, she makes it work.
  
• Temper! - SUCH a temper for such a small girl. Wow! It's a very German temper. Quick explosion and then she moves on. But this one is feisty. I think the temper will get a bit better as our word repertoire expands.
• Playing - she wants to play just like Buggy does. And with everything Buggy does - when Bugs is using it. Sometimes Fiona will share and sometimes she really just wants to do her own things. They are learning to work it out.