11 Months Old

Yesterday Kate turned 11 months old. As she gets closer and closer to 1 year, the entire experience seems somewhat surreal. But maybe that's only because I'm so exhausted I can't think straight. As it turns out, month 10 has not exactly been Kate's easiest month. The past few days I have found myself wondering where my happy little baby went. I think she was eaten by a pre-toddler.

Frustration. That has been a big emotion for Kate lately (and for me). She has also expanded her emotional horizons to include anger. Pinching is her method of choice to express this anger. She has been having a lot of tantrums lately. Tantrums because I take something away from her. Tantrums because I don't bring her food fast enough. Tantrums because I don't bring her the right kind of food. Tantrums because she doesn't know what she wants. Tantrums because she doesn't have any other way to express the fact that she doesn't know what she wants. I have been working harder to help her learn some baby signs so that she can start to communicate better. I'm hoping that once she learns to communicate a little it will lessen her frustration. Some signs we use everyday are nurse, more, all done, and eat. She is beginning to make the sign for "nurse" sometimes.

I think part of this frustration also might be that she is about to reach a big milestone. It wouldn't surprise me if she starts to say a word or two sometime soon. It really wouldn't surprise me if her first word is "dog". She loves to point out Deacon and say "duh" as loud as she can. It's super cute. She would also do this with Grandma's dog Kira when we were in California.

Side-note: We're back in Utah now. It's good to be home. When we first arrived home and I took Kate into her room her face lit up and she smiled so big. It was adorable to see her actually remember her room. But I think she is missing all the family she got to hang out with in California, especially her cousin Gemma.

I think another part of all Kate's frustration may be teething. She recently cut her top left tooth (that makes 3 total right now), and the top right tooth looks like it will come through any day now. There also might be some teeth coming in further back, but I can't tell.

Aside from all this frustration, Kate has really been blowing my mind with how fast she is learning things. She can crawl super fast now. Having me chase her is one of her favorite games. She loves to pull herself up to a standing position on just about anything she can. She never stops moving. From the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep, she has an extreme case of the wiggles. She likes to experiment by putting her toys inside of things, on top of things, etc. to see what happens. She will sometimes put shapes into a shape sorter if you show her which holes they go in. Her fine motor skills amaze me. But she seems to get bored of this game fast because it requires a lot of effort on her part.

And really, despite all of the frustration on both her part and mine, her smile and laugh still melt my heart every single day.

So on days where the only picture I can snap of her looks like this...

...I try to remember moments like this. It helps...a little :)