Little lady is eleven months old! I can’t believe it. 2012 has been super busy so far – blogging has sadly fallen to the wayside. I’ve had 2011-in-review post started for weeks, but haven’t managed to finish it, and now that it’s mid-January, it feels kind of lame to post. So that probably won’t happen.
These monthly photos are getting harder to take, because V will not sit still. She started walking right after she hit eleven months and has been wobbling around like a drunken sailor ever since. The photo below is a good illustration of what she’s like these days. Yikes.
The Noodle is now 10.5 months old, we missed a few weeks there Her newest skill, advancing week by week, is standing/walking/creeping. She will walk holding one hand on me or Anna and she’ll race full speed if she’s holding two hands. V is also becoming more of a blabbermouth with more syllables and different sounds strung together. We’ll have a post on her first Xmas and how much fun she had with wrapping paper and other forms of packaging.
I recently read Peter and Wendy because I hadn’t seen the movie since I was a kid and never read the book it was based on. The book is full of wonder and adventures for Peter, the Darling children, the Lost Boys (see photo above), the Piccaninny tribe, and the pirates.
The book ends with a sad scene when Wendy is grown up and has not seen Peter for some time. Peter was to return every year to Wendy for a visit together to Neverland. But he was forgetful as all children are, and had not returned for many years. Instead it was Jane, Wendy’s little daughter, who hears Peter’s crowing and takes Wendy’s place in flight to Neverland. Eventually, she too grows older too and it is Jane’s daughter Margaret that takes her place, and so on for generations.
I haven’t allowed my imagination to run in those old ways for some time. Our lives fill up with the burdens of grown-up living and playtime becomes a memory packed away in a closet with the toys of our youth.
With V, I can see a time when her great adventures will become my adventures too. I look forward to her creating worlds and characters and us all playing them out together. I’ll tell her the story of Peter Pan and Wendy and we’ll travel the island of Neverland with the Lost Boys. I just hope our time there isn’t too short.
Uh oh. I’m writing V’s nine month post now, over two weeks late! The holidays have always been a busy season for us work-wise, and throw in an active baby (seriously, active! I couldn’t get a good shot of her on the chair, because she kept wanting to launch herself off) on top of that and I don’t have much down time these days.
Eight-to-nine was a fun month of discovering that V is actually much more aware of what is going on around her than I ever thought. I’m constantly amazed that she understands actual words (though, just a few of them – let’s not get carried away, now). She can clap when requested, as well as hi-five, give a big slobbery kiss (gross AND yum!), and sign for milk. It’s pretty exciting that we are starting to be able to communicate – bits and pieces here and there – and I can’t wait to hear what’s going on in her head.
People sometimes ask me what her personality is like. The question kind of throws me off, because I feel like I should have a definitive answer, and I don’t. It’s still slowly becoming apparent – kind of like a polaroid picture as it develops, or a painting that is slowly taking shape. I’m only seeing hints of who she is, but she definitely tends towards bubbly (she’s almost always happy), super expressive, she loves to share (I am constantly having half eaten bananas and apples shoved in my face), energetic (always in motion, which makes for a very tired mama – our nanny calls her the energizer baby), and a little bananas (see second 40 of the video below where she’s going nuts on the couch).
Boxes are always great entertainment. As are shoes (unworn, not to worry).
V loves playing hide and seek.
Another favorite activity – removing all of the books from the bookshelf. One at a time, thump, thump, thump. I need to get her a pair of steel-toed boots.
We spent the weekend in Pittsburgh for the wedding of two friends. A bunch of our college friends were there, including many that we don’t get to see regularly (one came all of the way from Hong Kong!). It’s kind of awesome when you see someone after years of little to no contact and it’s like no time passed at all. You just pick up where you left off.
