Happy 11mo birthday to Lillian!

Time continues to march on and sweet Lillian is now 11 months old today! She weighs 8.775kg (19# 6oz) and is 73cm long (28.7"). Basically, her growth has started to level off and she is tracking about the same as Lexi did. Here is a little snapshot of what she is up to...

As many of you know, she has been on her feet since June...desperate to run after her big sister. You can see how her balance and confidence has slowly improved over time. Over the last few days, I have seen several instances where she will be holding something (her push cart for example) and she will let go and just stand there without support for 30-60 seconds. Well, today. she decided that she would take some steps. So, she has taken 2-3 solo steps from point A to point B or point A to me or Tim. She did this multiple times today. She was a little wobbly, but was super proud. Quite the difference than Lexi's experience. When Lexi took her first steps at 17 months, she was a perfect walker. She perfected her balance and made sure that she knew exactly how to do it before ever trying to stand on two feet. Lillian just dives right in.

Which brings me to swimming. As I have blogged, Lillian loves the water. She is once again the opposite of Lexi. She seems to be way more comfortable in the water and getting water splashed on her face than Lexi ever did. We still go to Baby Swimming every Thursday. Among other things, the class teaches babies to "dive". This is basically imersing them in water, but they learn to close their eyes and mouth. The babies learn to "dive" with the parent just immersing them, "dive" from the instructor to the parent, "dive" from the pool edge into the water, etc. Lillian has learned that when I say 1-2-3, that she closes her eyes and mouth on three and she gets dunked under. She "hops" from the pool edge into the water (completely under) or from a mat into the water or last week, she "hopped" from the instructor's arms to me a couple of times...going under water. Needless to say, she must have more of Tim's genes than Lexi does. Lexi and I are both cautious and fearful of certain situations (mainly any situation where I can possibly injure myself) whereas, Lillian has already shown to be braver on many fronts.

This brings me to climbing. The pictures a little further down on this blog entry explain it all...

She is also a hair puller...and it hurts like the dickens. We have been trying to teach her not to pull hair, but haven't quite got the message through yet. Lexi and I are constantly getting our hair pulled. Tim doesn't seem to suffer the same problem :)

Of late, Lillian is a major cuddler. We get lots and lots and lots of hugs. She loves to come up and give a proper hug (head on one shoulder and then head on the other shoulder) and then go back to playing. We all love to get Lillian hugs.

She is also a puzzler. She loves wooden puzzles...mainly just pulls out the pieces and sometimes tries to put them back in. But, what we are most proud of is her Fisher Price piggy bank. It is this obnoxious pig that has a coin slot. There are 10 plastic coins of two different sizes. Lillian has totally mastered it. I sat in her room with her one day last week and I swear she put a coin through the slot 40-50 times in a row. Her hand/eye coordination is great in addition to her desire to "do it right".

The last thing I jotted down to write about was her communication skills. She has started shaking her head back and forth for no. We firmly believe that she know what it means. If you offer her some food or drink that she does not want, we get the head shake. On a couple of instances, I got the positive up/down yes head shake, but I think that was just fluke. The side-to-side no is definitely something she has mastered.

Oh, and... still no teeth :)

Lexi had her annual picture taken at barnehage last week. I had planned to take Lillian in and get a sibling pic of the two of them, but it didn't end up working out time-wise in our day's plans and Lillian's nap schedule. So, Lillian got all dressed up in her pretty dress (compliments of my work colleauges) and posed for me.

Pushing big sister's doll stroller

Fun with the eye glasses from the doctor kit

Climbing #1

Notice she is standing inside the cart whilst eating her toast (it was an evening snack)

And today...I found her inside Lexi's doll house...

Lexi is constantly finding new ways to play with old toys

Lexi's first ever trip in the hot tub

Lexi posing on the new fishing boat

Tim pulling the new fishing boat into the boatslip. It is a couple of feet longer than the other one and the engine has more horsepower.