Annelise is Eleven Months

On Friday, Annelise turned 11 months. She constantly cracks us up. She is getting more and more mobile, and with that comes a lot of mischievousness. Annelise loves Danny's dump truck. She uses it as a walker and pushes her way around the basement. Or sometimes she will crawl into the back and wait for Danny to come by to give her a ride. She also loves to crawl into things. She likes the dishwasher, laundry baskets, and the drawers under Danny's train table. It is funny to watch her figure out how she will get where she wants to go. Our stairs that go down to our basement have a wood railing that block off the stairs from the living room. Today I caught Annelise throwing things between the rails down to the stairs. Every once in a while, Annelise surprises herself and stands on her own... but no steps, yet!

She does other cute things, too. She has been kissing for the last couple of weeks. We ask her to give us a kiss, and she leans forward to plant one on our lips. It is a 50/50 chance whether or not her mouth will be open or closed, though! If we tell her to give her Dolly a kiss, she will also do that and it is so cute! She has been saying no and shaking her head no. We rarely tell Annelise "no" in a single word. Usually it is more of a warning, like "No, no, no, Annelise, you can't have that!" In the last week she has been saying "No, no, no, no, no." She also shakes her head back and forth and looks at us when she is doing something she shouldn't be.

After all of our travels and sickness in December and January, we finally have Annelise sleeping through the night again. The problem is that she now gets up between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning. If Randy goes in to get her, she yells, "Ma-ma, Ma-ma, Ma-ma!" She definitely knows what she wants! We are once again working on the cup with her, so that Randy and I can go out every once in a while. It is a slow process because I am with her 95% of the time, so she rarely has a need.

I think back to Danny at this time. He had already been walking for 6 weeks. He had been weaned for 4 weeks. They are about the same size, although I think Annelise is a little shorter. Danny used a lot more sign language to communicate, but Annelise seems to be more verbal. Here are some pictures of the eleven-month-old!