11 months

A few days ago you turned 11 months. In the last month you have started to communicate with us, using your signs and pointing at things. You can wave hello and goodbye and sometimes you do it with both hands. You bend your left hand at the wrist and bob it up and down and you bend the fingers on the right hand, curling them in and out. You have got waving covered. Today you did the sign for "more" which i have been showing you every day for the last few weeks. When you eat all the food on your highchair tray you kind of bang your little fist together and sometimes you get your fingertips to touch. It's so cute. You can walk around holding onto one of our hands and you have taken several steps in a row, gaining more and more confidence as the days go by. Today was an unseasonably warm day, 78 degrees in march, so we put on our shorts and we went down to the center of glastonbury and walked around, you just love checking out the sites and walking and walking. we stopped for some frozen yogurt and you had a little taste of banana froyo and you shook your head no no no no, but then came back for another bite. I'm not sure what that means. Maybe you got a little brain freeze?

You have started drinking out of sippy cup straws and juice boxes which is exciting because we are going to help you give up your bottle in the next month. You are eating almost everything now, mac and cheese, waffles, eggs, bananas, yogurt, sweet potato and you love broccoli and cauliflower. You love to smear it all over your hair and your face and last night when I was giving you a bath, there were green tops of broccoli floating around.

In a week and a half we will be waving goodbye with both hands to our house on Needletree Lane and moving all the way to the other side of the state on the lake while we build our new home. We have been busy packing and you have been "helping" by climbing into all the boxes and popping your little head out the top like a groundhog and then throwing all the clothes all over the place.

Everyday while we are out doing things together, many people stop me to tell me how adorable you are. Like I didn't already know. And it's lots of people, you are so incredibly cute, you draw people into your orbit like the sun. Look at those cheeks, they say. What a pretty little lady you are. Those eyes are just amazing. You usually smile and wave like a little princess. And then you are off, walking, waving goodbye and learning about the world, you don't mean to be rude, you just you don't have time to stand around talking about how cute you are. There is a whole big world out there and you are curious about everything.

The other day we were talking to Nana and Papa on the Ipad and you kept trying to flip it down so you could look behind it, trying to find them, thinking that they would be there. You are so smart. You are only 11 months old and you already are questioning how everything works. You know how to shake the maracas at music class and last week you were hammering away on a metal xylophone. You are learning about everything and everyday i get to watch your face as you discover something surprising or silly or unexpected.

Today you started to cry because you somehow banged yourself in the face with your little barbie jeep. I picked you up and started yelling at the jeep, saying, that jeep is a bad bad jeep, and why did it have to do that to you and it was such a bad jeep and i was very angry with it and you were laughing so hard. every time I said it you laughed hysterically even though you knew i was going to say it. I think you just liked that someone was in trouble and it wasn't you. And that your mommy had your back, and i do, no matter what.

Love,
Mommy

10 Months

Dear Elle,
Last week you turned 10 months old. I happen to be a bit behind on writing this letter to you. Why, you ask? Because you have been a very busy girl which means I have been a very busy Mommy. The other day you learned how to climb up the entire staircase and you are always racing over to it to practice your new trick. I have to be fast to keep up with you. You cruise on everything and you can actually walk behind your little dinosaur walker. You roll all over the house with that guy. You can free stand for a long time, all by yourself, just standing there, not holding on to anything, just looking around like you are waiting for a bus or something.

Today Daddy left for a business trip to Vegas and you and I were getting ready for bed and hanging out in our room and I was putting away some laundry and you were playing with the basket. You slid it over to the side of my bed and used it as a step stool to get up on the bed and then laughed and laughed. I keep hitting you in the face with a little green pillow from our bed and i would say "poof" when it would hit you and you would laugh so hard. You are such a joyful child.

You are getting 4 new teeth on top, the two fronts and the sides. The side teeth are coming in fast and they look like little fangs. We sometimes call you Fang, I hope you don't mind. We have been introducing you to some new foods to try and I think you have a distinguished palette. Yesterday I gave you mac and cheese and you stuck out your little tongue and rubbed the pasta across it, so you didn't have to actually commit to going in your mouth before you decided if you liked it or not. Then you popped it in your mouth and sucked all the cheese off it and then spit it out. You love your cheese.

Last month in my letter to you I told you we were getting ready to sell our house and the update on that is that the house is sold. It was only on the market for 2 weeks, so I guess we did a good job with the renovations. We are moving in 5 weeks over to Matt and Bunny's house that they are going to let us rent on Candlewood Lake. We are going to have such a fun summer, we can go on the boat all the time and play and swim and you can watch us foil board and sky ski. We will be close to Grandma and Auntie Traci and Uncle Paul and Tia and Uncle Pete and all your cousins and we will get to see everybody all the time. We are so lucky.

You can mimic sounds you hear and I am trying to teach you some basic words and signs. I show you "more" and you laugh. I say, "mama" and you laugh. You think everything is so funny. We play some hardcore peek-a-boo in this house where we hide on you and then pop out and you almost faint from all the excitement. Or I give you the old trick peek-a-boo where I pop out of one place and then hide again and creep to a different spot and pop up somewhere else. We spend lots of time playing together and I am so thankful I get to see you laugh and play. You are such a beautiful child.

We just got up, me and you and you are sitting in your high chair eating blueberry waffles and bananas. and cheese. I am sitting right next to you and we are watching HGTV and getting ideas for the new house we will build. You have learned how to hold your bottle now, so you like to lounge on my lap and drink your milk and i like to sit right there with you, drinking my tea. Our mornings together are the best.

9 Months

Today we woke up to a few inches of snow covering the ground. You didn't seem to notice and as we drove over to our music class this morning you managed to pull off your socks and I think you ate them. You were singing and shaking your tambourine in your bare feet, shaking it like you had been rehearsing for this moment for a long time and you couldn't be bothered by having to actually put on socks. You always manage to get those socks off so I just let you have your way. Grandma tries to sneak them on you when you aren't paying attention and then you pull them off when she's not paying attention. You give Grandma a run for her money and yet she simply can't get enough of you. She has socks that she keeps at her house just in case you get yours all wet while you are visiting her and she gives you clean dry ones to wear home.

Over the weekend you turned 9 months old. You have officially been on the outside living in our house as long as you spent living on the inside, in mommy's belly. You had your very first Christmas and it was very special and you got some very lovely gifts from the family, like this little pink ballet slipper tree ornament with your birth info on it that you got from Aunt Joan and Uncle Bob. You got your first nativity set from Tia and Uncle Pete and you got a Baby's First Christmas Pooh ornament from Auntie Traci and Uncle Paul. You got so many things from Grandma and Grandpa, like a bunch of fun outdoor activity things to keep at Grandma's house, a sandbox and water table, a slide (oh boy!) and a mini picnic table because after all that playing you are going to need to sit down and rest have a fruit roll up and some animal crackers. Nana and Papa came down and stayed with us and gave you all sorts puzzles and games and a giant singing Moose. You were mostly interested in eating all the wrapping paper and playing with the dogs. You thought there were so hysterical. These huge balls of fur that move and roll around and sniff me?! It's brilliant!

Today we put our house on the market and it is a very adventurous time in our lives. We don't know where we are going yet. We have lived in this house for 5 years, your dad and I and we are going to move closer to nyc so your dad can be closer to his work. I doubt you will even remember this house but it's pretty great. We have had a lot of great memories in this house, mostly with you. We have spent a ton of time out on the Connecticut river which is very close to us, and lots of great summer nights we have spent on the back deck after a day of sky skiing and foilboarding. We will miss it. We remodeled most of this house ourselves, the kitchen and the bathrooms, finished the basement, planted lots and lots of bushes and plants. I had a pretty awesome garden every summer we have been here, with tons of organic vegetables and herbs. Auntie Jules and Uncle Adam have helped me plant it every Memorial Day weekend, it's tradition. I hope there is a sunny spot for a garden at the new house!

You can cruise around on the furniture now and you can climb up one step onto the fireplace hearth. I call your name and you turn back and I say, "no, no" and you just smile and go right on doing what you are doing. You are very independent. I asked for a kiss yesterday and I can't be sure but I think you shook your head "no" at me. You may have even rolled your eyes. On Thursday we went to a playdate at the Library with your friend Charley and there was a little playhouse set up in the Children's Room. Everything was kid sized, the little door, the little windows, the tiny fireplace. It was kind of dark inside because the fireplace was just painted on the wall and apparently there were no kid electricians around that day. There were a few toddlers gathered around on the outside of it, peeking in and hiding behind their mother's legs but not you, you just crawled right up to the door and without a second thought you pushed right through without even looking back to see if anyone was following you. You are the bravest little girl I know and I hope you never lose that.

Love,
Mommy

8 Months

Ouch. Ouch! Ouuuuch! That might be your first word since you hear it so much. You are still pulling hair and now you have TWO teeth on the bottom and you like to bite! You are also a master scratcher, you love to grab ears or noses or neck skin and just dig in with your little nails. When you wake up in the morning either your dad or i go in to get you and bring you to our bed to play for a bit and we basically just say "OW!" the whole time while you wiggle and crawl over our faces and huck your toys everywhere and dad even said you shoved your pinky finger up under his eyelid and scratched his lid from the INSIDE. Who does that? You, that's who!

This week you turned 8 months old and have added a bunch of tricks to your repertoire. You can crawl everywhere and you are getting very fast. We had to put up baby gates and put safety latches on the bottoms drawers in the kitchen and bathrooms. Yesterday you crawled under our big wood coffee table and turned back to look at me as you were asserting your independence, like, look at me mom, I am just out of your reach and I like it that way, and I said, 'Elle, please come back', and you just smiled and kept on going your own way, like, 'um, no thanks, mom'. I am very nervous for when you grow up. :)

Last week we had a play date with a little girl named Lily who lives across town and she is very busy and active and pulls up on stuff and when we got home, I put you in your bed for a nap and when I came back a few minutes later you were standing up in your crib, holding onto the side and smiling! You learned it from your friend!
We had to lower the crib mattress so you don't fall out and in the last few days you have started to pull up on anything you get your hands on, your toy basket, my leg, the kitchen stools. I bet you will be walking by the time you are 10 months!

You are eating all types of grown up foods, grapes, bananas, peas, prunes, turnips, apples, oats and today i bought you some gluten free waffles that we are going to try. You have been eating puffs for about a month and you are funny when you eat them because they always end up on the end of your nose and you look at us all serious like and we can't help to crack up. Today you had two on your nose and one on your cheek!

This weekend is Christmas, your very first one. We have a giant tree up, our biggest ever, in honor of you, (your Dad picked it out, don't ask) and I spend a lot of time trying to keep you away from the bottom of it. It's so sparkly and there are such good ornaments dangling from it, I know you can't help but want to play with it. You already got a few ornaments for your own personal collection that you will have for your own tree when you get married and move out of our house.

Nana and Papa are coming to see you and stay with us on Christmas eve which is a big deal since they have never stayed with us on Christmas eve in all the 11 years that your dad and I have been together. You haven't met Max and Izzy yet and you are going to love those big furry goldens! But, no, we can't have a dog just yet. You have to be old enough to help take care of it, and dogs don't appreciated being scratched and bitten. They bite back!

You are the sweetest most beautiful thing in our lives and we are so thankful for you everyday. We have great days together, me and you. I can make you laugh so hard, sometimes you just laugh and laugh and then I laugh and give you a big hug and a big kiss, and you usually bite my nose and pull my hair, but i don't care. As long as I get to be close to you.

Merry First Christmas,
Love,
Mommy

7 Months

Exciting news, Elle! This morning you woke up with your very first tooth. Your bottom left. Your daddy went in to get you when we heard you talking to yourself in your room (i wonder what you were saying!) He brought you into bed with us to play and cuddle until it was time for breakfast and you pulled his finger into your mouth and bit down with your new tooth. You are so funny like that, with your physical comedy. Just like the time last week when your daddy came home from work, very excited to see you, and you were just as excited to see him, you reached up and grabbed his cheeks with both of your little chubby hands, leaned right into his face like you were going for a kiss, and then burped up his nose. That's mommy's girl. :)

In two days you will be 7 months old. You can get up on your hands and knees like you are going to crawl, but then you slide back down onto your tummy. You aren't ready for that yet and that's okay. It doesn't stop you from getting where you want to go, you can roll there or scoot or if your toys are on top of a blanket you just pull the blanket to make the toys come to you. You are very resourceful! You can reach up and pull on my hair, but sometimes you have such good vision and motor skills that you can just pull on ONE of my hairs. Ouch! Your dad and I say "Ouch" a lot because you like to scratch and slap our faces and kick us in the throats. Even though it hurts, it's really funny.

We started doing Mommy and Baby yoga and we have a good time together. You like to feel the yoga mat and you love to play with the scarves and you fall into a fit of giggles when I do up dog and then down dog over you, I think you think I'm crazy.

Last week a rare snow storm hit Connecticut which was very early in the fall to have snow and the trees hadn't lost their leaves yet and the weight of the snow and ice pulled down many trees and power lines and left Connecticut in the dark for 9 days. It was the first time in the history of the state that we were out of power for so long. It forever changed the landscape of Connecticut, so many trees came down, old beautiful huge oaks and maples lost all their branches and now are just tall tree trunks. Almost every tree that around here has broken or missing branches, and some of the limbs are just hanging upside down. Our front yard was full of huge branches and it took Daddy days and days with the chainsaw to clean it all up. Lucky for us, Grandma has a generator so we went to live with her again and she was very happy to have us.

Right now it's early on Sunday morning and you are taking your nap, and Daddy too is taking and nap and the house is very quiet. We were going to get together with Morgan and James today but James woke up with the throw ups so we are going to see them another day instead. So now we have the whole day free, just you, me and dad. I think we will take Dad shopping at Macy's because he needs a new winter coat. I think we will also get you some baby puffs that you can start to learn to eat with your new tooth.

Love,
Mommy

Month 6

Dear Helena,

Happy half birthday! Today you turn 6 months old! Right now you are upstairs napping because you caught your first cold and you have been wanting to sleep a lot and lounge around on the couch and not do much of anything, kind of like a little teenager. We went to Mother Goose story hour at the library last week and you thought it was pretty fun. There were lots of babies there and they were crawling around and scooting on their butts and you just kept looking at all of them wondering how you could get around like that, too. We sang songs and clapped and practiced our nursery rhymes and one little chubby baby named Claire crawled on over to you and licked your dolly and I am blaming her for the cold you have now.

Now you can sit up pretty well on your own and you can play with all sorts of toys with buttons that play music and light up. You press the buttons because you know what they can do! And you can sit up in the tub and play with some tub toys that squirt water and you think they are pretty cool. Water! Your new best friend! Your dad took you on your first hike last weekend and you stopped at a stream and you watched the water flow over all the rocks and bubble right by you and you were amazed that you didn't know about this sooner. Did you see that, Dad? It's so cool! You are putting every single thing you can get your hands on in your mouth but you still haven't gotten any teeth.

You love to play peek-a-boo. You laugh and laugh these big belly laughs and it cracks your Dad and me right up. I run around the corner from where you are so you can't see me and you stay very still and your eyes get big and you raise one eyebrow and you watch the spot where I left and it makes you scream when I pop up out of a different spot. You laugh so hard. I bet you are peeing in your pants you laugh so hard. And I am so happy to know that you know just what will happen when Mommy goes around the corner… you know that I will always come back.

Last week your dad got a big promotion at work which means he will be traveling to NYC quite often and we are thinking about moving to Brookfield or Newtown. I was reading the email that they sent out announcing your daddy as the new CTO on my Iphone and you just reached up and with your dainty little pointer finger you touched the tiny trash icon which deleted the email. That is just like you, to so delicately remind us that anything we thought was remotely important is just a tiny little star that burned out 50 million years ago in the solar system of Elle.

Grandma is so very excited that we are moving closer to her, since she counts her days in "sleeps until Elle". Last Monday she called to see if she could come see you on Wednesday, because that's only "2 more sleeps until Elle". We went to visit her today and she sang you lots of fun songs on the guitar and piano and she let you strum the strings and bang on the keys. You got to go in her fancy room, you lucky duck. When Auntie Traci and I were little we weren't even allowed to put one toe on the carpet in the piano room, but you? She'd let you in there with fists full of lipsticks and socks full of chocolate popsicles.

Love,
Mommy

Month 5

Dear Helena,

Next week you are turning 5 months old. You have mastered eating baby veggies and you just love sweet potatoes and squash. We tried out carrots yesterday which i think you aren't really crazy about. I mean, who is? They are carrots and they kind of just stick around in your mouth, long after you wish they weren't there anymore.
You can pass toys back and forth with your hands and you are getting really skilled at rolling all around. You have a little dolly that you play with and try to eat and it's so cute because it looks like you are trying to give her a hug.

Last week we got hit with a bad hurricane named Irene and we lost power for 5 days. We packed up Mommy's car and went to live with Grandma for a few days so we could take baths and wash bottles and watch tv and play on the computer. Daddy came too, after he got done working. You and I slept in mommy's room that she lived in as a little girl and I think you really liked it at Grandma's house. She plays the piano for you and reads you lots and lots of books. Auntie Traci and Uncle Paul were there too, and we had big family dinners every night and you sat right up at the table with everyone and sucked on your toes and told us stories and made our hearts burst with happiness that you have come to join our family.

Everyday I can see your personality starting to emerge and you are beginning to show us who you are. You have an activity center that has a little lion puppet on it and i was using it to talk to you in a silly lion voice and then i said something to you in my regular voice and you looked at me with this face like, "mom, you are embarrassing me in front of the lion!" I am sure that is only the first of a trillion times i will embarrass you, but I will really try to not do or say dorky things in front of your friends. I promise.

The biggest news I have to tell you is that for the last few nights you have slept all the way through the night, from 7 to 7. At first your Daddy and I were shocked that you just decided you were too grown up to get up for a midnight snack, but the next night we were so proud of you. "She did it!" we would say. We have waited a long time to be able to sleep through the night cause we were kind of tired from all the night activities, but as soon as you stopped waking up, we missed you.

Love,
Mommy