11 Months Old

11 Months Old

Eek! Austin is almost one years old! I can't believe the next post will be for her birthday. This year has passed quickly! Austie-poo, as Blake refers to her, brings us so much joy and our family wouldn't be complete without her. 

Austin is a complex girl. I want to say she is super happy and easy going, yet sometimes she is just grumpy and upset unless she is being held. She definitely likes attention and will not tolerate it when she isn't getting any. She can be quite the handful, though mostly just for me. 

She can be grumpy or crying one moment, then happy as can be the next.

Austin likes new places and exploring new things.

She must be used to having a camera in her face, because every time she sees the flash on my phone, she immediately makes her "cheese" face. And slowly, it's gotten more and more cheesier. It cracks me up, and I'll pull out my phone just to get her to make that goofy face.

She will scrunch up her nose, close her eyes, and give a huge smile. She will often tilt her head back in that awesomely flattering angle that shoots right up your nose. Yay. 

   

I'm pretty sure most of the pictures I took this entire month include some sort of version of this face. 

It is now almost difficult to get a normal picture of her, because every time she sees my phone, she makes "the face". But of course, any time I try to show someone, she will never perform. 

Generally I find it adorable and hilarious, but at the same time it would be nice to get a normal picture of her.

She has been wearing short sleeve shirts, tank tops, and swim suits most of her life so it was funny to watch her when I started putting long sleeve shirts on her again. She looked super confused and just sat and played with the sleeves forever. It was super amusing to watch her trying to figure out what was on her arms.

She is starting to imitate a lot more and copying what other people are doing, like clapping.

Austin is into EVERYTHING! I'm not sure if I just forgot how bad little ones were, or if she is just particularly destructive. It's like she doesn't know how to quite play with things yet, so she will just go somewhere, and pull anything and everything down that she can find, and once there is nothing left to scatter, she moves onto the next area. Will is constantly bringing her downstairs because he says that she is destroying his room. And I believe it.

In our kitchen, we keep our sandwich bags in our bottom drawer. It is one of Austin's favorite places in the entire house. One by one, she will grab every sandwich bag out of the box and throw it on the floor. When it's a box with over 200 baggies, it becomes a big mess very quickly. And of course you can't get them back into the box, so that drawer has just become crazy to open and try anything.

Another favorite of hers is the packages of wipes. Like the baggies, she loves to pull wipes out one at a time until the entire package is empty. But she wants nothing to do with them once they are out, she just enjoys the process.

Other favorites of hers include:

• Opening our tv cupboards and pulling out all of the Wii games, controllers, etc and throwing them all over the floor.
• Going into Will's room and dumping out toys or tipping over his tool bench.
  
• Climbing on the garbage can until it tips over so she can scatter the garbage everywhere.
• Going into the bathroom and pulling on the toilet paper until the whole roll is unwound
• Opening any drawers she can find and throwing everything out of them.
  
  She thinks she is hilarious.
  
• Going into Will's bedroom by the chalk board and getting all of the chalk out of the containers and throwing them on the ground (or trying to eat them)
  
• While she is in her crib, she will reach through the slats to open a plastic drawer next to the crib that is full of her headbands. She grabs the headbands and throws them all on the floor.
• Opening her drawer full of shoes and taking them all out and leaving them on the floor. Or going to Will's closet and pulling down all of his shoes...
  
• Throwing her food on the floor whenever she decides that she has had enough.
• If our pantry door is ever left open, even just a crack, you can be sure that there will soon be cereal scattered all over the kitchen floor. 

  

  Cheesy smile, even when she gets caught being naughty.

  

I'm not exaggerating when I say that she is into everything.  And she will go through that entire list in a single day! My house is a disaster. Always. 

She is definitely attached to her mommy. She prefers to have mom in her sight at all times and to be within arms reach. Anytime mom walks too far away, Austin starts crying and chases after mom. Her least favorite thing is when mom uses the restroom. She will sit in front of the door and scream until I am finished. The door to the bathroom downstairs opens outward, so often she traps me in and I cannot open the door because she is sitting right in front of it.

Once I am officially out of sight, she does ok and eventually forgets about me. Then she will play, aka make a huge mess. But if I ever walk into the room, she remembers that she needs me and will freak out if I don't pick her up. I've learned basically to stay out of her sight when she is playing. Or sometimes if I need to go downstairs, I will try to sneak past her and remain out of sight so that she will continue doing what she is doing. Once she sees me, I'm done for. 

When I workout in the morning, all of the kids go to daycare. For a while, she was more difficult and had to be held most of the time. Since learning to crawl, she has done a lot better and will crawl and play and has become much easier. However, the second I walk in the door or if she ever sees me, she drops what she is doing and cries until I pick her up. Best to stay out of sight until I am sure that I am finished and ready to carry her around.

She eats more and more food and is nursing less and less. 

They have been doing construction on our road for months. Austin likes to sit outside and watch the tractors and workers. They were working while I was trying to take these pictures, and it was nearly impossible for me to get a picture of her looking at me instead of the workers.

Austin has learned how to pull herself up to things. If I ever stand still for too long, there is a 99% chance that she will find me and pull herself up and cling to my legs. I suppose it's a good way to get my attention, though it can become obnoxious when I'm trying to get something done and she is constantly clinging onto my legs.

She is a quick learner. After a few tumbles, she has quickly learned to be careful when she is at the edge of something. She stays away from the stairs completely, which is awesome so I don't have to put a baby gate up. 

Although I admit that I don't necessarily do much to try and tame it down, her hair can get a bit out of control, and it likes to stand straight up. I typically just let it do whatever. 

One thing I have noticed this past month is her preference for Will over Blake. Will is very good with Austin and is helpful and takes care of her. When she is sad, he will sing to her or hold her. He loves to make her laugh and she just adores him. When Will walks into the room, Austin lights up.

Blake on the other hand, likes to torture her sister. She takes her toys, tries to steam roll over her, etc. If Blake gets too close, Austin will start to scream and shove her away with both hands. Sisterly love.

With the combination of her constantly throwing food on the floor and me never sweeping, there always seems to be food available for her to find. And she finds the messiest things. 

But if she isn't finding food on our dirty floor to eat, then she is outside eating dirt or sticks. I can't imagine it tasting very good, but I always find her with a mouth full of dirt. Sometimes it looks like she got into oreos again, but instead it's just dark dirt all over and in her mouth.Yum. 

Still not thrilled with wearing headbands. You would think that she would be used to it by now and barely notice it, but she constantly pulls them off. The second I put it on her head, her hands reach up to grab it. The only way it'll stay on for more than a few seconds is if I grab her arms and distract her for a bit until she forgets its there. Doesn't last too long, however.

Austin babbles all of the time and is starting to say some recognizable words. She will say hi, this, and thank you. (When I try offering things to her, I usually say, "Do you want this?"....apparently I say that a lot because the word she says the most is "this".)

She is very quick and moves from one place to the next.

Believe it or not, sometimes she isn't in the mood to have her picture taken. Don't worry, I take them anyways. ;)

One of her favorite games is to pass things back and forth to each other. She will hold out a toy/food/object for you to grab. You take it and say thank you, then offer it back to you. Then she will grab it and give it a hug before she offers it back to you. 

She has a few more teeth coming in...at least 2 more on the top and 1-2 more on the bottom. 

Austin has no interest in walking and wont even try. She can stand up to couches/objects easily. Her legs are strong enough. But if you try to hold her hands and get her to walk, she will buckle her legs and try to sit down. 

She still love playing pat-a-cake. I'll hide her eyes, say "Where's Austin", then move them and say peek-a-boo. She will grab my hand, and put it back over her eyes. If I try to stop playing, she will keep grabbing my hand to cover her face.

Looking over her pictures, I just laugh. She is such a little cheese ball and it cracks me up. Still in denial that she will be one in a few short weeks, but we sure love our Austie girl.