you're eleven months old {dear beautiful little lady}

Dear Little Quinn

Where on earth is the time going? In one months time you will be one, and I feel totally unprepared to be leaving your first year behind us. It seems to have all flown by so quickly. I know I said the same thing with both Dylan and Everly too, but I swear that you seem to be growing up even faster. Maybe it's because you're just so chilled out an easy going and have made life with a baby so easy, or maybe it's just where we are always so busy with life that the time just flies by.

This past month you've got really really into pulling up to stand. So much so that we are starting to think that you'll walk in the not too distant future. You aren't standing unaided yet, but you literally stand up and cruise around the entire time, and love walk around holding onto our fingers. You'll still crawl around, but only until you can get somewhere that you can stand up again. It makes you seem to much more grown up now that you are spending so much time vertical. You can play alongside the older two more now, and that age gap between you and them doesn't seem anywhere near as big as it once did.

Last month I wrote about how we had been struggling with your sleep routines but that things seemed to be looking up a bit. And things are still improving. We finally seem to have installed a proper bedtime, and you are nearly always asleep by 8pm now. You do sometimes wake once in the night still, but I don't breastfeed you in the night anymore, and we'll simply give you a cuddle and you settle back down without too much trouble. And we definitely see more and more nights with no wake ups now, and you are sleeping longer.

We got into a great routine with your naps over the school holidays, but in the past month Dylan and Everly have gone back to school, and I'm still trying to work out how we work those nap times around the pick ups and drop offs. All the school runs seem to be at a really bad time as far as your naps are concerned, and you'll often end up falling asleep in the car and then waking up when we get home and effectively cutting your naps down to a short cat nap. But we'll work it out over time I'm sure, and it's not like you're the kind of baby who gets grumpy when they are tired, so it's not too bad. You just tend to get a bit cuddlier and clingier, and honestly... I don't really mind that too much!

Thinking back a few months to how hard we found it introducing you to solid foods, you really couldn't be more different now. You eat so well, and are eating more and more of the dinners we eat now. I can't even tell you how excited your brother and sister were the first time that you tried fish finger, or how proud Daddy was when you decided that you really, really like his risotto. You will happy try everything and seem to like basically everything (except for mash potato which seems like a really random thing to not like!) You absolutely love breadsticks, will shout for bananas when you see them on the sideboard, and go to great lengths to steal ice-cream or toast if you see anyone eating them.

You're babbling and chattering away more and more now. I think that despite my protests that it "was just babble" you do actually know that "dada" and Daddy are the same thing. You say it at him and look at him if we say it, so as much as I would have liked your first words to "mama", we are officially calling it... your first words were "dada". Nothing else is particularly meaningful yet, but you seem to add new sounds every day now, and its so funny listening to you chattering away in your own little language. You wave on cue now which is very adorable, and we're working on clapping... but mostly you just look at me like I'm insane while I clap my hands at you.

I've started taking you to babyballet class, and oh-my-goodness does it make my heart melt. Having danced myself since I was teeny, then taking Everly when she was eighteen months, and then teaching for babyballet myself; it felt so special to take you along for your first class. And you absolutely loved it. Of course you aren't actually attempting any actual ballet yet, given that you can't stand up yet, let alone point your toes or dance; but there is lots of singing and dancing around. And you especially love the sensory lullaby at the end, with the flashy lights and teddy bears, thats my favourite bit too, not least because your face just looks so fascinated and happy.

You really are, quite simply, the most easy going and happy little baby I've ever known. You smile so much, pull the cutest little shy grin when you meet new people, and giggle at the drop of a hat. I'm just so proud that you are mine. And as much as it pulls at my heart a little to think that my next letter to you will be celebrating your first birthday, I really couldn't be happier than I am to have the privilege of watching you grow up. Seeing you change and learn and become a little person really just makes me love you even more.

You are a delight, and a little sunshine. You are so loved little missy.

mummy x x x

You can read all her previous letters on her page here.

An eleventh month in photos...