Notes at 11 Months

Here are some NEW things about Maddie at 11 months old.

Maddie is learning and understanding so much so quickly! For example, if we say the following actions, she understands and will perform the action:

Hug - Give me a hug, give the toy a hug
Kiss - Give me a kiss, give the toy a kiss
Shake - if she's holding something in her hand, we say "shake shake shake!" and she will shake it and she will have a huge smile. It's a guaranteed way to get her to smile if she is grumpy.
Bottle / Milk - she points to where the bottle is or will sign milk

As I wrote in a prior post, Maddie absolutely loves books and loves having books read to her. For a while it seemed like she was totally disinterested and we thought we were wasting our time reading, and we are glad the effort has paid off!  It seems she'd be happy with us reading to her all day. We are sticking with board books for now since she is rough and would damage regular books. And if she doesn't like a book, she will get disinterested and find a new book.

She will find a book on the floor and pick it up with 1 hand and aim it towards you, looking at you expectantly to read it to her.  She understands the word book and we are teaching her the sign for Book.  If we ask her to "find a book" she will find a book (and if we are tired of that specific book, we'll say "find another book" and she will find another one). She's even gotten pretty good at finding specific books such as the "mirror book" or "ladybug book." And if we say "bring the book here" she will even crawl over with the book if it's not too heavy or big for her.  Lastly, she knows how the turn the page with both hands, though she favors turning the page with her left hand over her right hand.

Coinciding with books, she is learning from them as well!  She has learned where her nose is, as two of the books we read have a page about noses.  One book says "Where is your nose? There it is!" All of a sudden one day, I read that page and Maddie reached up and put her palm to her nose! To make sure it wasn't a fluke I read it a bit later and she repeated the action!  She will do it pretty frequently now if we ask her without the context of the book.  Another book we read says "How big is Elmo? Elmo is SO BIG" and we will raise her arms out wide as we read that page.  Just today Maddie started lifted her arms up over her head when we read "How big is Elmo?" and again, is doing it out of context of the book when we ask "How big is Maddie/Elmo?" Such a smart cookie!

Dances (sways side to side, or front to back) when we say "dance dance" or ask her to dance.

Still claps, though not as frequently as she used to.

Still crawling very fast and we are trying to encourage her to walk. She did take a few steps on perhaps 3-4 occasions but does not seem eager to walk. She is great using the 2 walker toys. We have started to hold her hands more frequently and walk and she's great walking with either one or both of her hands held.

Maddie is eating pretty much everything still (though lately she seems to not dig cheese as much as she was before, hopefully it's just a phase!). We have introduced a straw cup for water and she took to it right away.

She has her own way of signing "all done" when she is done eating (she has done this for a while but I don't think I posted about it before).  It took a little bit for us to realize that she was signing "all done." She will wave both arms about and it looks like she is excited but she is all done!

Maddie has learned now to share and give toys!  She will play with a toy then hold it in her hand and reach it out to you and wait for you to take it out of her hand. She will also hand over pieces of food and feed you as well.

We are teaching her animal noises and she is catching on! She will consistent growl when asked "What does a lion say?" And today it seems she has remembered "what does a horse say?" and lets out a high pitched "neigh!" it sounds like a laugh.  We are looking forward to the next animal sound she remembers!

Speaking of animals, I have mentioned before she loves the animals on the wall in her room. If she gets fussy as we bring her upstairs for her nap or bedtime, if we say "let's go see your animals" or "let's go say hi to your animals" it usually calms her down.

She has 2 more teeth coming in on the top row of teeth, the ones on either side of her existing 2 front teeth.