Dexter's Diggs: Harper 11 Months

Eleven Months!!

Excuse me while I take a moment to freak-out over planning this girls first birthday party.

Age: 11 Months Old

Weight: at 9 month doctors apt weighted in at 17lbs 15 ounces

Length: at 9 month doctor apt measured 27 ¾ inches long

Size: Miss Harper is still wearing size 3 diapers, which I assume she will be for a while. She is in pretty much all 12 month clothes and pajamas but we’re still holding on to some 9 months since this Fall weather fluctuates so much.

Hair: Light brown/blonde, it’s getting just long enough to start trying some hair clips. It’s pretty straight although the back ends tend to wave/curl a bit when wet.

Eyes: She has the most beautiful big blue eyes with long eyelashes. Everyone always complements her on those gorgeous eyes of hers

She found a way to crawl on top of the coffee table

Health: Another great month! The only thing that came up this month was a rough diaper rash that I think was brought on by too many blueberries. Apparently she’s just like her brother in this department, they sure do love eating those little guys but blueberries are just too acidic for their little bums. It took a good week to get that thing close to gone and lots of nakey time to help heal.

Teeth: Holding strong at 8 teeth. It was nice having an entire month break.

Sleeping: At the beginning of the month there were a few weeks Harper was having a hard time falling asleep on her own. She would just roll around in her crib from one end to the other and back, then after some time throw her pacifier out the crib and cry so someone would come in. She would sometimes take an hour or so to finally fall asleep but thankfully she didn’t cry too much during that time frame and eventually put herself to sleep. She also continued to wake up earlier for a while, she was usually up by 6:00am both during the week and on weekends! No Bueno for the weekends!! Now Madden and her have decided to start a tag team waking in the middle of the night the past week or so. I mean every single night for like 8 days or so. They either switch nights waking or one will wake shortly after the other is back asleep. I've seen lots of 3am's recently!

She still goes down for bed between 7-7:30pm and sleeps till 6:15/6:30am. She is still taking two naps, however the past two weekends has decided to refuse just taking her afternoon nap for her mama. Her first nap is around 9am and lasts 1.5 hours. Her afternoon nap at daycare is usually around 1:30pm and varies on weekends for me if at all.

Matching Halloween Jammies

Eating: Now that watermelon is going out of season, Harper has found her love for fruit cocktail!! New fave! She loves her some peaches and pears. She will demolish an entire fruit cocktail cup. Between her and MJ, they will eat an entire can of pears. I might have fed her bananas a bit too much as she seems pretty over them right now and for the past week will only mush them up in her fists and throw them on the floor. And dogs don’t like bananas so that’s not cool. Cottage cheese is also her jam, she stuffs that in her face by the fist fulls. Loves Gerber little beanies, yogurt melts, Puffs, Cheerios, Ritz crackers, sweet potatoes, cheese, yogurt, nectarines, blueberries (limited quantities), ALL the pasta, French fries, pizza, and sweets.

Harper is still breastfeeding although she doesn’t nurse for as long during the day and has weaned off her evening feed when I get home from work and she’s home from daycare. She’s more interested in eating food and would rather just eat actual dinner. She now eats about 4 times a day. On weekdays I only nurse first thing in the morning and at bedtime, which is really kinda nice for me. She has two bottles at daycare and eats 3 meals plus a snack or two in there. Really looking forward to start to transition in some cow’s milk to her diet soon and be done with pumping.

enjoying soccer practices

Movement: Harper is the fastest thing on four limbs, girlfriend can seriously make it to the opposite side of the house in 10 seconds. Okay maybe that is a little bit of an exaggeration but this girl seriously disappears in seconds and is nowhere to be found. I’m constantly sending Madden out to find her and make sure she’s not getting into anything she shouldn’t be. She tries to climb on everything! Like the coffee table and our toy kitchen.

Milestones: Gives High Fives over and over and over again. She has starting to cruise furniture, particularly loves walking around the coffee table and will go from the coffee table to couch on occasion. Will let go standing for a second or two. Starting to mimic actions and noises.

Favorite Toys/Activities: She loves non-baby toys, especially things that are big brothers. She constantly plays with his Melissa and Doug lock puzzle, SmartMax magnetic blocks, and crawls to his room to play with his toys especially the play kitchen. She like her music table and standing up at her jumperoo (not in it) but she does still like bouncing in her jumperoo. Bath time. Being naked. Crawling on top of people. Chasing after big brother and being chased by him. Playing peek-a-boo. Playing with door stops. Opening and closing doors. Playing in the dog dishes and the pantry

Dislikes: Still not a huge fan of being put in her car seat, although she doesn’t go into roll mode nearly as much now. She definitely is still a mamas girl and won’t let me out of her site when its nearing toward bedtime. Hates having the dogs water and food bowls taken away from her or if they are already moved when she goes to the laundry she is pissed. Hates green beans. Strangers! Girl has some major stranger anxiety, not a fan of new people coming up to her and will immediately make a crying face and turn to mama for help. Once she’s done eating she wants out of her highchair, there’s no hanging around with the family. She means business only.

Words: Says Mama and Dada

Sounds: She has started mimicking noises and sounds that you make to her. She squeals, yells, babbles, and still blows raspberries.

Harper's new fake cry face

Favorite Moments

Harper has learned a new game she loves to play, I call it Catch and Release with Daddy. I was yelling at Dave to watch her while making dinner one night because she loves to crawl over to the end table in the corner to play with whatever we have plugged into that outlet, which is usually where the iPad charges at night. Sure enough she starts right on over there so Dave yells out "Harper, no no no!" He picks her up, carries her away to set her down in the middle of the room, she giggles turns around and crawls right back on over there. They do this on repeat over and over. If he's not paying attention she crawls over there, stops right in front of the outlet and turns around to wave her arms trying to get him to look at her again. Once he sees her she starts giggling and goes for the outlet so he comes and gets her.
The above game has grown to a fun game of tag with her big brother. They love to chase each other all over the house at night. They both usually get a little wild in the evening after dinner right before bed. This is the time Harper crawls all over the house trying to get into everything and Madden will help go find her. She crawls after him running around the house then when he comes running back into the living room she tries crawling away from him and they go back and forth giggling.
A few weekends ago we went over to the Malloy's house for baseball, beers and to let the kids run off some energy. They have a very fun neighborhood that is kid friendly so the kids ran wild. The past few months Harper has started getting very leery of strangers or even just people she hasn't seen for a little while. She usually cries immediately if they get too close, try talking to her or if I'm holding her she will turn away and play shy burying her head in my shoulder. So since there were lots of new faces at their house she would cry or start to cry and most people would back right away to leave her along, cause nobody wants to make a baby cry. I think she started to pick up on that because half way through the night she started making a pouty face every time some came up to her or tried talking to her but it was a different face than she makes when she actually cries. As soon as they saw that face they would back off. So now she makes this pouty face all the time, even at home when no one new is at our house. See above picture!