11 Months -- almost there!

We've almost reached the brink of Aiyana's monthly updates (which I've been doing for a separate baby book). Next post, I'll have a one-year-old! But in the meantime, let's focus on my 11-months-old "baby".

Every Sunday morning at 9 am, I leave Aiyana with Dan while I go to choir (I love choir by the way. We have an amazingly talented director who challenges us to sight-read and put together 4-part harmonies that extend beyond the usual hymn book numbers).

Anyway, when I come home I always find these two snuggled up together:

 She loves to lay in her daddy's arms! Most of the time, she'll be fast asleep. She won't do that for me, of course. Aiyana and I have our routine and that does not include docile snuggling unless I'm cuddling her while feeding her a bottle and trying to hold her over-grown body like I would a baby.

She has just about out-grown her sleep-sack and with summer approaching, the long-sleeved fleece was too warm anyway. She now uses this sleeveless cotton Halo brand which is huge. She looks so adorable though.

More teeth! She's had the two top and bottom and now has two more little ones poking through to total six. Three on top, three beneath. Love this grin.

Aiya is Speedy Gonzales when it comes to crawling! or slithering, more like it. She still lays mostly flat as she army-crawls her laps around the kitchen, though she bends her knees now and uses them to push off. When there is something she desperately wants within her line of sight, she comes at me with such determination and speed that it creeps me out sometimes! As she's targeting me, I can't help but picture that girl from the ring with the long black hair crawling out of the TV. Sick! Good thing Aiyana's blond, blue-eyed and too beautiful to belong in a horror film.

On a daily basis, she finds anything and everything to put in her mouth. Fortunately, she's very savvy about whether it's edible or not and will often spit-it out by the time I reach her and put my hand out.

She's also really good at gagging up any food that is too hard or dry or pieces that she hasn't chewed well enough. I'm always a little on edge when I see her mildy choking on something, but if I leave her alone, she usually gets it out without help from me. She even sticks her fingers in her mouth to trigger her gag-reflex!

Look at those thighs! Mm. -- I just want to bite them!

Love this playful face! One of her favorite games is to head at lightening-speed towards something she knows I don't want her to play with, such as the shoes by the front door or in this case the flickering night-light. She takes off towards it, looks back with this teasing grin, and bolts away when I make a move to catch her. She lets out a loud giggle when I grab her leg and drag her towards me and then busts up laughing when I gnaw on her tummy or tickle her arm-pits. Such fun.

Even as I was trying to blog, guiltily ignoring her while she played on the floor, she kept crawling and pausing to turn around with this same playful expression, egging me. How could I not toss the laptop aside multiple times and chase after her?? Motherhood is the best.

My little talented seal! -- another favorite game. In her playroom, there are tons of these colorful plastic balls lying around. Most of them are slightly indented enough that I can place the ball on her head and Aiyana will balance it for a few seconds. I started this with her a couple months ago and now she thinks that's what balls are for! Who needs a job when she can start her on street-act in San Francisco? This one's on her way to big things, I'll tell you that much. = )

More Fun Facts:

• She loves her brother. Aiyana talks about Ty frequently throughout the day. Whenever she passes his picture, she thrusts her arm out towards him with a huge smile and says over and over, "Dye, Dye, Dye!" This almost always happens after her bath because there are some framed pictures of Ty around the bath-tub. In the nursery, after I rock her with a bottle, she'll toss her bottle aside and pop herself up in my lap, looking for the sketched drawing of Ty that isn't hung up yet. "Dye! Dye!" and she'll wiggle her fingers at him or wrestle out of my arms so she can sit beside the picture and touch the glass. Downstairs, we have one of those digital frames that rotates through pictures of Ty. Aiyana goes nuts when she sees it, scrambling within my hold so she can be up close and personal with the pictures. She laughs and "talks" excitedly, saying his name in the same low, somewhat-raspy voice she uses when she says Ty's name. It's pretty awesome and makes my heart warm. Now, any time we ask, "Where's Ty?" she looks and reaches for any picture within her sight. We love that she knows him -- and she doesn't just know his name from us teaching her. She shows anxious excitement in a way that you wouldn't guess would come from a baby, especially one who hasn't "technically" met Ty in body. I'd love to be in on their private interactions!
• She's putting some sounds/words to use in the correct way. If I ever make the mistake of saying, "No-no! or "Aiya, don't", she immediately starts to say, "doh! doh! doh!" For instance, she's outgrowing spoon-fed cereal for breakfast, so after a few bites, she'll knock my hand away, spilling mush all over both of us, and a frustrated me will say, "Aiya, don't!" As I try to feed her another bite, she throws her arms back and forth in front of her body, (imagine an umpire signaling "SAFE!" over and over) and she says, "doh! doh! doh!" creating an impossible gauntlet for me to feed her another bite of nasty cereal. When I'm not annoyed, it does make me laugh.
• Why walk when it's so easy to crawl? Her shirts are filthy by the end of the day, which I guess sums up the cleanliness of my kitchen floor. Actually, they don't get as dirty at my house as when we're out doing errands, like stopping by Barns and Noble. Tired of the stroller, I let her play on the floor in the toy section and when I picked her up, her shirt was just a couple shades lighter than black. Gross. She definitely bathes more often.
• We're trying to teach Aiyana how to be "soft" to people. She just thinks it's funny to slap us in the face or drag her fingers and nails down our eye-ball and cheeks. It's one thing to do it to us but now she's doing it to other kids, like her cousin Calvin. She likes to be around kids still but she is a little mean. She snatches their toys and has aggressive determination in her eyes! I don't know if she'll comply to what we're teaching her just yet, but we've got to start somewhere.
• She went to her first story-time at the library. She seemed  a little in awe of all the little babies around her, since it's for under 18 months. It was pretty cute watching her pay attention to the silly songs and sounds happening. I couldn't help but laugh at all us moms present. We sound a little creepy, almost like a strange cult, as we make animal sounds and fake laughter in high-pitched, childish voices. We'll be going back though.

Time to start thinking about her one-year party!