May 28, 2009

Eleven Months

Señorita Clementina,

On April 29th, you turned eleven months old.


I love the look on your face in this photo. You appear to be a tad bit concerned about your whereabouts...which is to be expected when they are brand new. You are ever the serious girl when encountering new things and plant life most definitely falls on that list this go 'round.


A good example would be the Easter Egg Hunt held in our neighborhood. Your Dad managed to capture this very sweet photo of you holding the egg in my hand before you became enthralled with - what else? - plants. Mostly the plants are weeds and other things growing randomly on the swamp land that is Houston, but to you, they were and still are the most fascinating playthings ever invented.

That makes it: nature - 1, men - 0 when it comes to keeping you enthralled if anyone is keeping track at home.

I kid, I kid...sort of.


This was not your first foray in the land of, well, land, but it was the first time you'd been anywhere but our yard or the playground. While the grass in our yard was ho-hum, the playground is full of tiny pebbles, and man are those grand. So fabulous, in fact, that it was the only place you would crawl on your hands and knees for the longest time. In the house? Tummy-crawling rules! At the playground? We must keep up appearances for our friends lest they begin to think we are unrefined.

This from someone who makes every attempt to eat the ground she crawls upon.


Your Grammie and Pop Pop came to visit us for Easter weekend, and boy did we all have fun. We traveled up to Independence, Texas and took in the bluebonnets. You were uncertain about them at first, but you soon began to enjoy inspecting them. Your initial concern may have been due to the fact that you had ants in your pants. Literally. Well, an ant in your pant, but still. That little guy was quite upset about being in your pant leg and he made his feelings known. Not that I really think it had any effect on your expression, but we can always blame the furrowed brow on the poor insect, now can't we?


Dying eggs was something I loved to do growing up, and I really hope that you will enjoy this tradition. We decked you out in one of your Dad's old t-shirts and let you watch while he wrote on the first egg. You really wanted to help, or so we thought, until the following occurred:


Mmm - hard boiled egg in a shell. That was it; you tasted the egg and then you were very done. Oh, well - there's always next year. The four of us had a nice time dying eggs "for you" anyway.

Towards the end of Grammie's and Pop Pop's visit, I could tell you were feeling under the weather. Sure enough, you got a virus of some sort that had no symptoms other than really fussy baby. Excellent indeed. A few days later, you got the normal teething cold and three more teeth showed up. Yup, you're still going against the grain and refusing to grow them in pairs. You do at least now have the four across top which means that you shall soon not be quite so fang-a-licious.

Soon after the teeth put in an appearance, you began crawling on your hands and knees all the time. The military style is out and slappy-hands are in. You smack them down onto the ground as you move along, which makes it very easy to know where you are and which direction you are taking. This shall soon change, I am sure, but for now I make use of the added warning.

Within about a week, you stood up at the sofa, then creeped along on your wobbly legs while holding on for dear life and finally you just side-stepped along from one end to another like you'd always been doing that. You tend to wait to attempt these types of skills, and then wham! you just up and do them.


You've really started communicating with the baby in the mirror this month. While you liked her previously, you thought she only existed in your toy mirror. Now you see her in all mirrors or shiny objects and you talk/squeal/laugh with her and try to touch her.


Here you are again, inspecting the ground, only this time you are in San Diego, California. Your Dad gave me a trip for my birthday, and this is where we decided to go. The grass was tiny and very soft and boy did you like it. We could have sat here all day long and you would have felt it and pulled it and probably tried to taste it.

We were able to see some really interesting things in San Diego, and overall traveling with you was just fine. Granted, our days of seeing anything and everything are completely over, but we enjoyed exposing you to new things and it was nice to have a different pace to our travels.

One thing that was not nice, in San Diego or at home this month, was your ability not to sleep.


Yup. See those eyes? Once again, the "I need sleep" look. And yet, if we put you down or even go down with you, no sleeping occurs.

I know I've mentioned the sleep issue before, but usually it has just been that you wake up a lot at night. This month, you would wake up and then not go back to sleep for hours. Hours, little miss. Hours. To say that we are tired of being tired is such the understatement.


At least you cheer up a bit when you get into the water. Oh, how you enjoyed the pool at the hotel. It was warm and very echo-y and you just talked and talked about how great it was to be there. You kicked, you splashed, you tried to drink the water. Good times indeed.


Not so great times were the days when it was rather chilly in San Diego. We came from 80-degree weather to 60-degree weather and man did it feel cold. It didn't help that we were so close to the water. This is you in your stroller about a minute from having a meltdown because the breeze, it was freezing!


One thing that can be said about Houston: It is not freezing. Ever. While this fact usually makes me a bit sad, for days like the one in the photo above, I am grateful. That sky? You don't find something like that just anywhere. It is special and different and greatly appreciated, just like you.

Love,
Mom

1 comment:

Brianne said...

Cmon Clementina, sleep! Please sleep! I've realized that sleep deprivation makes me feel totally psychotic and emotional. I feel for you all so deeply! When N wakes up (fortunately for us it is rare) it is usually for 1+ hours as well. Last night I was in there for about 70 minutes, though I think she was awake longer than that... I heard a few squawks, and when she was being cute during her diaper change saying "dat," and "yehyeh" (her word for belly button) I was all like, "no that! no belly button! it's not time for talking, it's time for sleepy!" Sigh. Sometimes I can be so mean. But not much is cute at 1 am.