The countdown begins!

Natalie is officially 11 months old.  We can’t believe she is one month shy of one year old.  It is simply amazing how much she has changed in her one year of life.  She is nearly walking now – although conversely, isn’t it incredible that it takes humans a whole year to learn to walk?  I don’t think any other mammals take nearly that long.  Back to the topic at hand…

At 11 months, Natalie can stand independently for about 20 seconds, until she realizes that she is doing so, at which point she becomes nervous and sits down or grabs on to something.  She pushes around a walking toy independently.

Natalie is still not a cuddler.  Although she is extremely sweet and friendly, she rarely snuggles up to mom or dad.  When she does, it’s for about 10 seconds, until she thinks of the next thing that she wants to do.  She is always on the go.

When we were on vacation, Natalie became quite adept at waving.  She now waves to anyone who catches her eye, and since most people reciprocate with huge, encouraging smiles, this habit has been reinforced quite well.  She also loves playing peek-a-boo, and she plays any time she thinks of it.

Natalie’s skills at imitating speech have been steadily improving.  She can repeat “mama,” “dada,” and “nana” quite easily.  While I’m still not positive that any of these count as her first word, I’ve seen glimpses of her connecting the word to its referent.  “Dada” may have been her first word about 2 months ago when we were skyping with Taylor; she would look at the computer screen with Taylor’s face on it and say, “Dada.”  But, alas, she says “dada” for A LOT of things right now :).

In this video, Natalie shows off her skills while reading one of her favorite books.

And actually, she can now say the animal sounds on her own!

Natalie asks to read multiple books before bedtime, pawing at each of the 4 books we typically read before bed.  I can’t believe she’s already prolonging bedtime this way :).

She also loves the water.  She loves putting her face in, she loves kicking, and she giggles at mom and dad's antics.  She kisses when you ask her to (although it's sometimes a bit wet!), and she giggles after she does so with her scrunchy face smile.  Her scrunchy face?  We've realized it comes directly from this mama. :)

I know I can gush forever about Natalie's many talents, but the truth is that no matter what she is able to do, we would still love her so deeply and be incredibly proud of her.