baby : 10 - 11 months

These last couple of months have flown by. Last time I looked I had a tiny baby and now miss lady, while still little, has made all sorts of developmental leaps. I think sometimes I underestimate her because she's the baby of the three -- I forget that she can understand so much now.

Now she shakes her head 'no' or nods her head 'yes' (usually about food). She has become a pickier eater and has spurned all my great home-cooked veggies in favour of rice, avocado and lots of finger foods. For snacks she loves fruit and yoghurt and toast.

She points to everything, loves seeing the dogs around our neighbourhood and ducks in the park. She can give me a toy if I ask her and thinks her preschooler brother is hilarious. He is always trying to make her laugh. She loves hugs with her biggest brother -- she is a great snugly hugger now; she wraps her arms around our necks and rests her head on our shoulders. It melts our hearts. She has so many big people to love her -- her 15 year-old brother is as tall as her dad now.

Her main word is dada and he is the only person she calls by his name. When she calls for me, she does it with a cry.

She has just dropped to one day sleep (so I am typing this as she plays in the lounge room. Yo Gabba Gabba might be on TV too ;) and she is having one and a half or two bottles a day plus a breastfeed. I can feel my hormones shifting as all that lovely oxytocin (the breastfeeding hormone) is depleting. But mostly we are doing well and weaning slowly. Miss lady, or my vanilla bean as I sometimes call her, loves giving me big 'kisses' which sometimes leave bruises. I teach her to be gentle by telling her ('be gentle') and stroking her head or arm to show her what I mean. She is a great rough and tumbler because the preschooler wrestles with her.

On her next update she will be one! I can't believe it. I still haven't written her birth story, but I want to -- if only for her, in case she'd like to know about it one day.

Next year will bring all sorts of changes for us: she will be starting daycare for two days a week, the preschooler will be starting big school and I will be going back to uni. And I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel of all the sleepless nights. It's exciting!

If you fancy catching up on the lady's babyhood here she is at 9 months, 8 months, 7 months, 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, 1 month and newborn.

{miss lady is wearing a vintage terry towelling suit with an owl and pussycat print that used to be mine as a babe. she is looking at these board books: 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 'That's Not My Monster' by Fiona Watt, 'Where is the Green Sheep?' by Judy Horacek and Mem Fox, ' Being Together' by Shirley Hughes, which was her biggest brother's book and 'Baby Animals' which was her dada's  baby book.}