11 Months

For eleven months now, I have been faithfully taking a picture of Zoe, as close to the 11th as possible.  In each picture, she has been properly sitting by or propped up by her stuffed dog.  At eleven months though, Zoe has a mind of her own.  The simple act of sitting for the second it takes to snap a picture, is almost impossible.  There is just far too much world to explore to waste our time on such trivial things as sitting still.

Our photo session ended up kind of like this...

"Hey what's this thing behind me.  I must turn around and see what it is."

"Oh mom, this is so stressful.  How could you put so much pressure on me."  (I think she was actually starting up a game of peek-a-boo with me, she just momentarily lost her eyes.)

"This is exhausting.  I think I will lay down and rest on this incredibly soft, fluffy thing behind me."

"Or, better yet, maybe I will wrestle with it."

"Hey mom, what is that toy you are playing with.  I want to see."

We did manage to get one normal picture.  It is a little blurry though.  I literally had to hold her down sitting, tickle her, and then pull back to take the picture.  I didn't have time to hold the camera still.

(As always, you can click on any picture to see it larger, or click on any of the pictures in the group below to be able to click through all of them.)

I can't believe that Zoe is now only one month away from her first birthday.  Time certainly does fly.

The last month has been a fun and crazy one.  Zoe now has 4 incredibly cute little teeth.  She is standing almost all the time now, and takes a couple of steps every once in a while.  She doesn't quite have the confidence to walk yet, but as soon as she decides she can do it, she will be off.  She is an amazing stander though.  She bounces and claps and bends over, all while standing.  She will be unstoppable soon.

Zoe never stops moving.  She is always on the go.  She is always exploring, discovering, and in motion.  She is developing quite the little personality.  She is kind of silly.  She loves to make people laugh.  Any time she does anything that makes someone laugh, she will repeat it over and over again.  She also bursts out laughing anytime she hears anyone else laugh, even though she has no idea what is funny.

Zoe gets into everything, and she is always so proud of herself when she gets into something new.  We will tell her "no," and she just looks at us with this cute little proud grin, like "but look at what I just found I can do."  It is a good thing she is so cute!

Even though she is always on the go, she is very much a momma's girl and is a little clingy.  In any new circumstance, she thinks I have to be holding her; and even in our house, she never wants to be more than a few feet away.  When I put her down on the ground, she will go off to explore, and almost always, as she gets to the doorway or just a little too far away, she will turn around to find me.  As soon as she sees me, she will crawl as fast as she can back to me, crawl up onto my lap, lay her head on me and say "Awww" (giving me a hug) and then hop down and go back to what she was doing.  It is so cute!  I love it.

Zoe is also starting to talk a lot.  Although she doesn't really say words, (except for da-da) she is always babbling, and she has certain sounds that she uses to communicate certain things.  We can recognize the sounds for hello, all done, hugs, and a few others.

This is a wonderful age.  I  love watching her learn and explore.  Sometimes it is a pain, as she is pulling all the movies off of the shelf, or insisting that I pick her up because I dared step out of the room for a second, but I am trying to just enjoy every minute.  She is growing up so fast and I don't want to take any of this for granted.