11 months.

Dear Mary,

Only one more month until you are one!  I cannot believe an entire year has almost passed since you were born.  It has gone by so quickly and while I miss when you were just a tiny little snuggler, I totally love who you are growing into.  You are funny and now you even laugh at yourself.  You truly are doing something new every day and have done a lot of "first" things in the last month.

You are busy cruising furniture and just in the last few days you have been standing unassisted for increasing periods of time.  You even accidentally took a step all by yourself yesterday (the 25th).  You can clap your hands and like to play patty-cake. You can "snap" your fingers.  And you like to clean your hands like mama and daddy do when we change your diaper.  You can do all of that on command!  You started fake laughing a few weeks ago, too.  You said your first real word on the 16th- "up."  You use it correctly although sometimes it comes out as "bup."

You now have 4 teeth!  The two middle ones in the bottom seem to be all the way in and the middle two top teeth broke through (finally) this past Tuesday.  Just today you realized you can tap them together and make noise.  You get mad most of the time now when I try to feed you.  You are so independent and love to feed yourself a variety of finger foods.  You love chicken, turkey, almost all fruits, cheese, broccoli, lasagna, black beans, green beans... you name it!  You also love pickle spears.  And your favorite is still, by far, peanut butter toast.  You have even started eating PB&J's. You even had your first "fast food" meal at chick-fil-a recently- grilled chicken nuggets and a fruit cup.

You can wear some 9 month clothes still- although the pants are getting to be a little short.  You are wearing mostly 12 month clothes now and thankfully there is room to grow in those.  Your Mimi just gave us some new pajamas for you and your Gigi gave us lots of summer clothes that she bought last year before you were even born!  Your Mimi is going to make you some clothes too- you will be all set for summer for sure.

You still take 2 naps a day (usually 40-75 minutes) and sleep about 10-11 hours at night.  We surely cannot complain.  You love "yelling" at the dogs and climbing all over them.  They are still tolerating you and still love to clean up after you eat.  Mama loves it too!

I plan to enjoy every moment of this last month before you turn one.  It will surely be as much of an adventure as the last 11...

Love you nugget,
Mama