Rayah – 11 months

Okay, now it’s Rayah’s turn for an update!  Wow – this girl has advanced a lot in the last couple months!

Rayah’s biggest accomplishments have been in the arena of mobility – she started off with the crawl-drag, pulling herself along on her belly, which eventually progressed to mastering the conventional crawl, and has led to her ability to pull herself up to standing just about anywhere she pleases, which has led to learning how to climb up and down the stairs!  One of her favorite things to do is tug on my pant legs and pull herself up to standing, holding onto my leg while I’m trying to make supper.  She can also take steps sideways while holding onto a couch or windowsill, but if we try to hold her hands and walk with her, she just wants to jump up and down.    Overall, she is quite pleased with herself and her achievements and I think she is generally much happier to be moving around on her own!  She’s kind of funny though, in that she tends to crawl for a short distance and then take a break and sit up to look around or play with an object she found, before she continues on.  The same goes for the stairs – she likes to take her time and will stall on one step to just stand there for awhile, being indecisive about whether to go up or down, changing her mind often.  Poor Joe – sounds like she is taking after her mommy!

 

Video – Rayah starts crawling

Video – Rayah climbs the stairs

We had a few major meltdowns involving being around strangers and only wanting mommy, so babysitting has been a bit of a challenge, but it seems like she’s starting to warm up to people just a little bit more and I’m hoping she will grow out of this phase sooner rather than later.  She often comes over to us, wanting to be picked up & will put up a big fuss if we try to sit her down on the floor.  One thing we did discover though, when Joe’s parents were visiting, was that when she’s upset or with someone new, that it helped a lot if they sang to her.  Overall, singing has been a good strategy for soothing her and she generally likes anything that makes noise – musical instruments of all kinds, banging on pots and pans, shakers, etc.

  

In the food arena, she has switched from formula to milk, which she loves, and she’s starting to eat more and more regular solid foods – thanks to 3 more teeth coming in!  She loves eating things by herself and is quite good at picking up small pieces of food and getting them to her mouth on her own – this includes items likes leaves, stones, or any other treats she finds on the floor.  

Rayah hasn’t been getting into a lot of trouble, perhaps because we have more babyproofing in place already then we had with Justice, but she is definitely interested in the toilet water and recently discovered the joys of toilet paper!

She loves the outdoors and will follow Justice out onto the deck if he leaves the door open.  She also loves just looking out the patio door or out the windows and will be very sad if I don’t let her go outside when Justice goes out.

 
 

I haven’t had the chance to weigh her again, but at 11 months, she is fitting quite nicely into 18 month clothing.   As for her health, our only problem has been recurring yeast infections on her bum – boooooo!  Here she is getting a bum soak in the kitchen sink.

She’s usually a very good napper and sleeps quite soundly for about 1 1/2 – 2 hours or sometimes more and she sleeps really good at night, though she almost always wakes up between 5:00-5:30am for a bit before crying herself back to sleep until 6:30am, when our whole family is up and awake!  Some of my favorite times with Rayah are putting her to bed, as she has the sweetest snuggles and cuddles when she is sleepy.

 

She has an incredibly loud scream!!  She will definitely let you know when she is not happy about something and can burst into the saddest cry with big tears, especially when you take something away from her that she really likes.  But she can scream with an intense piercing shriek when she is happy and laughing too – I love getting those out of her when I tickle her – it’s so unretrained and full of joy!  Other things that she loves that make her smile and laugh are the swing, being tossed up in the air or swing around in your arms or hung upside down.

I love her big open mouth smile, her camera smile when she poses with her scrunched up face and squinty eyes, and her closed-mouth smirky smile!  She has many funny facial expressions and noises, including an exaggerated breathing through her nose with big pursed lips.   She is such a delight and brings us many smiles and laughs!