11 Months

I can't believe there is only one month left until Shirley is one year old!  This month has been full of new things for Shirley:

She has started taking steps.  She usually only takes one or two, but one day she took six or seven!  I was home alone with her and pretty much went crazy.  It might have scared her because she hasn't done it since.  I'm not really complaining though.  I know it will come soon enough!

Shirley also learned how to climb stairs (and how to get back down).  Now we have to keep a strict eye on her at my mom's house.

She copies everything her mama and daddy does.  She evens copies my mom's dogs!

Speaking of dogs, she discovered Maggie and Tacy this month and she LOVES them.  She's not afraid of them at all.  She'll pet them and stick her finger in their mouths and laugh at them.  I took her over to the back door one day when the dogs were outside and Tacy jumped up on the glass right near Shirley's face but she didn't even blink.  (Her fearlessness may not be a good thing.)

Whenever I tell Shirley "no" or say "Shirley" in a serious tone she shakes her head back and forth.

She also started saying some words and she started pointing at things in books.  Shirley loves her rubber ducky at bath time and she often will say "duh, duh" while she's playing with it.  We checked out a book from the library last week called "Time for Bed, Fred!"  It's a book about a dog finding his bed.  At one point he splashes in a mud puddle and gets all dirty so he has to take a bath.  Well, there's a rubber ducky on that page and she surprised me one day by pointing to the duck and saying "duh"!  Now every time we read it she does the same thing!
At meal times when she's in her chair I tell her to raise her arms up so that I can snap on the tray and now she'll repeat me and say "up, up".  She also loves to say "hi" and she'll wave while she says it and sometimes she'll repeat the word, "baby".

I love this little girl so much.  It's so cliche to say but it is so hard to imagine that there was a point in life where she didn't exist.  She brings her daddy and me so much joy with her sweetness and spunkiness.  I just love being her mama!