Eleanor took her first steps on Thursday, December 6. For the next week or so she would only take a few steps before falling or sitting down on purpose. We caught this video the Sunday after she started walking. (side note: apparently hair ties are super interesting and make provide awesome motivation to walk)
Then here she is just 2 weeks later, walking like a pro! She's still a little wobbly, but she's definitely walking! This was yesterday at church.
Eleanor loves walking. She still prefers to be near something she can pull up on, but once she's up, she's good to go. We were out running a few errands this morning and we let her walk a bit. She kept letting go of both our hands, insisting on walking by herself! She is too funny and thinks she's a big kid now that she's in with the big kids in the toddler room at daycare instead of in the infant room :)
Our sweet girl turned 11 months old yesterday! It's so hard to believe that the next photo we take like this will be when she turns 1.
The weather was exceptionally nice yesterday, so we celebrated Eleanor turning 11 months old by taking a walk outside with Little Miss in her new shoes! She's not walking by herself yet, but she's soooo close.
Since Eleanor will be 11 months old tomorrow (!) I figured I should probably get a post up about what she's up to these days. I didn't get to it closer to 10 months, so I'm just going to do a combined post about 10 and 11 months. Brace yourself - Eleanor is very busy these days so we have a lot to update on! :)
-Eleanor loves to walk with her push toy. Loves it. That's all she wants to do. And nowadays she can even steer herself, so she's completely self-sufficient with the walker. The daycare director talked with me last week about moving up to the one year old room a little early (starting to transition the week of December 10) because "Eleanor is getting a little overbearing with the walker." Seriously, the girl can book it!
Last Friday Eleanor crawled over to a push toy when I sat her down to fill out paperwork at daycare dropoff. She walked herself on out of the room and down the hallway! Girlfriend is on the move.
What does a smart girl do when the church nursery doesn't have a push walker? Make her own using the toy bucket of course!
-She is starting to stand on her own for anywhere from a few seconds to close to a minute. This lasts longer if she has something in her hands. I think this is because then she doesn't realize she is standing independently :) We are trying to encourage her to stand independently and take steps, but she still prefers crawling, cruising, and using her push toy.
Helping with diaper laundry - and standing independently!
Boxes are fun to stand in too
-Eleanor has been giving high fives for a while now, but now she will also wave and blow kisses - sometimes even with an "Mmmm" sound accompanying them! One day last week when I walked in the room to pick her up from daycare she crawled over to me. Once I picked her up she turned to look at one of her teachers, grinned, waved, blew a kiss, then looked at me as if to say, "okay Mommy, let's go!" It was adorable. Here is a video of her making a "blub" sound with her finger over her lips (also a new trick) and then blowing kisses. (She's in a disposable diaper because we've been battling a yeast rash - again. She's on her second round of oral medication, so hopefully it goes away for good this time!)
-The cats are still a huge hit with Eleanor. She absolutely adores them and crawls all over trying to pet them. Lola is more tolerant of her than Sadie is, but they're both good with her. We spent a couple days at my mom and stepdad's during Thanksgiving and Eleanor was in heaven since there are a ton of cats running around everywhere. We arrived late Wednesday night and the minute we walked in the door, before we had even seen a cat, Eleanor started smiling and making a "k" sound (how she says "cat").
Lola loves Eleanor...Eleanor still loves books
-Eleanor is doing a great job with table foods. She's eating three meals a day (usually yogurt and cheerios for breakfast at daycare, lunch, and then dinner with us). Some days she gets a snack, though we're still figuring out what snacks at daycare we're okay with her having and which ones we aren't (some of them have a ton of sugar, which we're not big fans of). I think we're going to send in some foods Eleanor can have for snack on the days we don't want her having the daycare snack. In the past month or so we've started ordering a kids meal, or at least an entree, when we go out to eat. She won't eat all of it, but she's eating enough that it's starting to affect what Matt and I eat. Eleanor is a great eater and really loves vegetables and fruit. She is also a big fan of anything pasta.
Turkey and green beans on Thanksgiving
She loves pasta. I'm not kidding - she will yell at you if her tray is empty and she is still hungry.
She's also gotten pretty good at looking for dropped food chunks in her bib :)
She's also doing a great job with water. We got a couple new sippy cups that have a rim like a regular cup or glass. While she was doing fine with the straw sippy cups, she absolutely loves these new cups and drinks a ton of water using them.
-Eleanor still loves reading books. She is also very into pointing at things these days. She points to pictures in books she's reading, things around her, photos...pretty much anything. She really likes walking around and looking at the photos we have in the house. We point to the people and say their names. Well, Matt and I say the names and Eleanor does her best :)
Reading with Daddy
-The weather lately has had some unseasonably warm days. We've been taking advantage of the weather and getting outside as much as we can. A couple weeks ago we went for a walk at a nearby state park. Here is Eleanor with Matt on our walk.
Just some other fun photos!
Girlfriend will not sit facing you in the cart. She turns every which way trying to look around :)
Hanging out with Nana on Thanksgiving (my grandma)
Eleanor and Grandpa (my dad)
Playing with the toy kitchen at Crack.er Barr.el. Good thing we're planning to get her one next year! She loved it!
Go Bucks!
Trying to go through the cat door at Nonna and Papa's house
We've also starting planning Eleanor's first birthday party (a winter "one"derland) and decorating for Christmas. Eleanor loves the tree and has done a great job of gently touching the tree but not trying to pull anything off of it.
Birthday invitation photo out take :)
Christmas decorations! The nutcrackers (and these aren't nearly all of them) started when Matt was a kid. He wanted a nutcracker for Christmas so his grandmother got him a real wooden, nicely made nutcracker from Germany each year. Aren't they fun?
About a month ago Matt, Eleanor, and I made a trip to a local orchard/farm for some Saturday afternoon fall fun. The cool part is that the place we went is owned by the family of a friend of ours, so we got to see Ruth Ann and also help support her family's business :) We had a great time! We went on a hayride, played in the children's area (including Eleanor's first swing ride), had lunch, and got a pumpkin. The following weekend we carved our pumpkin - outside, thankfully, since the weather was so nice. Eleanor loved carving the pumpkin. She was so interested in what was inside, had a blast pulling out and touching the insides of the pumpkin, and even tried to eat a little bit of pumpkin. Both days gave us some much needed family time amidst the craziness of day-to-day life.
First swing ride. Not quite sure what to think.
Eleanor really liked the hay.
How tall is Eleanor? (except the dirt is packed down, so it's a little inaccurate :) )
Fun with Mommy on the hayride
Fun with Daddy on the hayride
Mmm, pumpkin
Cruising along the pumpkins with a little help from Mommy
This is so fun!
Pumpkin carving fun! (If you look closely, the photo second from the right shows pumpkin in her hair!)
Sorry for the lack of updates! Between work and Eleanor being constantly on the move, the time for sitting down and writing a blog post has drastically dwindled. Here are some things Eleanor is up to these days.
-She is on the move. All.the.time. When she's not crawling she's pulling up and sometimes attempting to cruise (hold on to furniture and walk). She loves walking with her push walker toy or by holding your hands.
On the move after a bath. Notice the red blur in her right hand? That's the mallet to her xylophone - she loves to take it with her everywhere around the house.
Taking herself on in to her classroom at daycare
Loving the push walker! She used to need us to hold the wheels so she didn't push the walker out too far in front of her. Now she's a pro and can handle it all on her own. We're just working on steering instead of running into walls :)
-Eleanor loves books. Loves them. She makes a beeline for her bookshelf daily. Once she gets there she pulls books off the shelf, looks at them, "reads" them, then tosses them to the side so she can pull out more books. It's hilarious and oh so cute. She has started pointing at things and when she reads she points to either the picture or the words. I'm one proud mama that she's starting some early book skills all on her own just from being read to here and at daycare :)
-She talks a ton. It's so fun to hear her babbling away! Sometimes I wonder what she's saying. Eleanor does have two consistent words: "kuh" is "cat" and "guh" is "book." I know the sounds don't quite match up but she very consistently says them for each object. And if we're in her bedroom and say "cat" she immediately looks toward the door in expectation of a cat walking in the room. Smart girl!
-Eleanor still loves the cats and, surprisingly enough, they both tolerate her pretty well. Both Lola and Sadie will let Eleanor crawl close and bury her face in their side (she loves to feel their fur on her face). They also let Eleanor pet them. However, Lola and Sadie do draw the line and get up and leave when Eleanor tries to pull up to a stand using a cat as support :)
-Little Miss can clap her hands, wave (though it's still not consistent), and give high fives. It's pretty cute.
-Eleanor is eating 6 ounces in her bottles roughly every 3.5-4 hours. She's eating lunch and dinner every day (except for the days when she sleeps through dinner since she refuses to nap well at daycare). So far Eleanor will eat pretty much anything, with the exception of plain yogurt. I bought some when she had a stomach thing going on a couple weeks ago and she was literally trying to get it off her tongue while pushing Matt's hand with the spoon away from her face. She liked the banana yogurt I got the next day much better :) We're planning to start breakfast this week. It's been tricky since I already get up so early and get Eleanor up so early during the week. With already waking her up at 6:15am I didn't want to have to start waking her up at 5:45 in order to have time for a bottle and for her to eat breakfast before we leave the house for daycare. Matt talked with Eleanor's daycare teachers about it on Friday and they said we could just bring breakfast with her in the mornings and they could give it to her. That makes it so much easier, especially because we can also then space out bottles and table food instead of eating breakfast right after having a bottle. I just need to figure out some quick and easy things I can take with her in the mornings. Right now I'm thinking yogurt, fruit, and maybe oatmeal or bagels. Any other ideas/suggestions?
Girlfriend loves pasta. Loves it. She yelled at us when her tray was empty.
-Eleanor's favorite toy right now is her baby doll. We picked it up at Tar.get last weekend and girlfriend has barely put it down since then. Her face lit up when she held it in the store and she gives the doll huge hugs when she picks it up or when we hand it to her. She crawls around dragging the doll behind her and has a lot to say either to or about the doll. Matt and I decided the doll needed a name, so we are now calling her Jane :)
Asleep in the car with Jane the doll :)
-Eleanor is now wearing 9-12 month clothes. She made that switch a couple weeks ago, so right around the time she turned 9 months. We went to the doctor today for her 9 month appointment (yes, almost a month late, but I'm on fall break so I didn't have to take time off work). Eleanor weighed 21 pounds (76th percentile) and was 28.25 inches long (63 percentile). The nurse practitioner was really pleased with where Eleanor is developmentally, both physically and cognitively. We go back in January for her one year (!) appointment, though we have a short appointment next month to get the second dose of her flu vaccine. (I debated about getting it or not, but with the amount that Eleanor is around other people and kids decided it was probably safer to do so.)
-We carved our first pumpkin as a family last weekend. Eleanor had a ball! We let her reach in and pull out the inside of the pumpkin. She also kept pulling up on the pumpkin and trying to eat the edges of it. By the time we were finished she had pumpkin all over, even in her hair! Look for another blog post in the next few days all about fall activities! :)
Here are some other random pictures of Eleanor:
At the doctor for a bad rash and a tummy bug. Some good antibiotic ointment and a probiotic got things back to normal.
Go Bucks! (and thanks Grandma for the adorable outfit)
Helping make sandwiches for homeless men downtown (our small group does this the first Sunday of every month)
So yesterday Matt took kind of a fun photo of me and Eleanor. The last pregnancy photo I have is from 39 weeks (I went into labor at 39w2d and Eleanor was born at 39w3d). Yesterday marked 39 weeks since Eleanor's birth...so we took a photo in the same spot we took most of my pregnancy photos and Matt made this little "39 weeks in/39 weeks out" collage. Crazy what a difference 39 weeks makes, isn't it?
Also, Eleanor turned 9 months old today! It's getting harder and harder to get photos of her sitting still because she is on the go all.the.time. During this 5 minute photo session she kept pulling up on the bear, rubbing her face on the bear, and bouncing up and down on her bottom. Seriously, the girl is a little ball of energy :)
Matt got a great picture of Eleanor's teeth tonight at dinner. Yep, that's right, I said teeth, not tooth. We found a second tooth poking through her gum yesterday evening. Again, we had no idea she was teething (am I naive in hoping the rest of her teeth come in with no issues?). But she's got that tooth on the right and then just barely has her other bottom tooth to the left of the bigger one. If you zoom in closely you can see it a little easier :)
Eleanor is very very busy these days! First and foremost, she's crawling like a champ now. She started sort of crawling/sort of scooting a couple weeks ago, but as of last week she can crawl pretty quickly to get from one place to another. Carpet is easier for her to crawl on than the laminate we have downstairs, but she can manage that too when she really wants to. Anything is fair game these days and our cats have very quickly learned to get out of the way before Eleanor crawls to them and then tries to pull up on them :)
Because, oh yes, Eleanor is pulling up too. When she isn't crawling she's trying to pull up to a stand. She even managed to pull herself up to standing in her crib at daycare last week! Needless to say, her crib is now on the lowest setting for when she tries that at home :) And last night she started cruising, just barely. I thought it was fluke, but today at daycare she took just a few steps while holding onto the window. I'm so not ready for all this! To go from crawling to pulling up to starting to cruise all in two weeks...baby girl needs to slow down :)
Oh, and in other big news, we have a tooth! Matt and I had no idea Eleanor was teething until I decided to check for teeth about a week and a half ago. Imagine my surprise when I felt something sharp! The tooth was already through Eleanor's gum and she'd given no indication that was going on at all. It would be great if that keeps up through all the rest of her teeth. I haven't been able to get a picture of her tooth yet, but it's definitely there and you can now actually see it when she opens her mouth wide enough :)
Speaking of opening up, Eleanor is doing an awesome job with food. She still loves broccoli and peaches, but she's also found a love for using a spoon. We tried applesauce with her about a month ago and after a few tries she insisted on taking the spoon and feeding herself. She does a pretty decent job of getting it to her mouth. Because she loves using the spoon so much we've been exploring other things we can put on a spoon. We're not quite ready for yogurt yet so we've been giving Eleanor some of those food pouches. Oh my! She makes a mess, but she gets a good amount in her mouth! Just load up the spoon and let her have at it. Here are some photos Matt took from dinner tonight.
Eleanor is really enjoying paper lately. She loves tearing it and pulling on it. My mom got out some tissue paper for her when we were down for my high school reunion. Eleanor clearly had a ball :)
Little Miss is also talking a ton. Well, she is certain that she's talking. She's gotten really good at the "k" sound. We think it's because she loves our cats (seriously, adores them) and whenever she sees a cat she makes the "k" sound. This has turned into her general excited noise, so we hear it a lot whenever she's really happy. She's also been playing around with "g,", "m," "b," and "d," sounds. She's really chatty in the car and during diaper changes especially.
We have also discovered that Eleanor apparently enjoys shopping now. She likes to try to grab things off the shelves :) We went grocery shopping last night and I got her out of the cart while we were waiting to pay. She decided that she wanted a snack, apparently.
And I just love this photo of Eleanor. I hope she keeps this love of books as she grows older.
Eleanor had a big trip earlier this month. We spent Labor Day weekend in northern Wisconsin with our small group from church. This is the third year we've gone up and, as always, we had an amazing weekend. Eleanor was a trooper in the car, especially since we left after work on Friday and it's a long drive. We were on the road by 4:00 and made it up the cabin by about 1:00 our time (midnight Wisconsin time). We spent a great 2.5 days hanging out and relaxing. There were 12 adults and 11 kids up there, and while it was semi-chaotic at times, it really was great. We are already looking forward to next year :) When Matt gets finished editing some of the photos he took while we were up there I'll do a post about the trip. In the meantime, here's a picture of Eleanor on the front porch and a photo of the view from our room. Talk about peaceful.
And because it's too cute not to post, here's Eleanor one morning before church :)
