Life's Little Souvenirs: Eleven Months Old.

Well I am little behind, but HELLO ELEVEN MONTHS!!

Age: eleven months, 12 days (pictured).

Weight: 16 lbs and 9 oz.

Height: 27 inches.

Favorite food: love her baby puffs, fruit, and sweet peas.

Loves: exploring, chasing the animals, and her stuffed panda bear.

Dislikes: being told "no", green beans, and having anything put on her head.

Avalyn turned eleven months old on the 16th and boy has it been a new adventure!
She has started crawling; I wish I knew when exactly she started doing it, but it happened so fast I didn't even realize what had happened! I remember putting her in our hallway as I cleaned the guest bathroom, so I could keep an eye on her, and as I was scrubbing the toilet (ICK!) I looked over and there little miss was! I went back to scrubbing and then I thought to myself, "How the hell did she get over here?!". It wasn't until a few hours later when I actually saw her crawl that it dawned on me.
So what is life like with a mobile baby?
Interesting, to say the least.
I thought life would get easier now that she can move herself. I remember thinking, "This will be great! I won't have to stop what I'm doing every five minutes to help her up into a sitting position.". Well, I was wrong. Yes, it is so great seeing her move around on her own, but I am still having to stop what I'm doing to coax her out from underneath things and convince her to stay out of the cabinets and drawers. Having to do all of that is definitely tiring some days.
Her curiosity amazes me though.
She is just so fascinated by cat toys, books on a shelf, picture frames on a shelf, door stops, dresser drawer handles, etc. Everything is so new to her and to sit and watch her crawl over to things, look at them, reach for them, pick them up, and make her "Oh?" noises is such a great experience. The looks on her face are priceless as she tries to decipher what each new object is.
She insists on pulling all of the books off of the lower shelves.
She attempts to terrorize the cats with her little hissing sounds. She must have seen or heard the two going at it as they usually do when they rough house and now every time she sees one of them she does her best to mimic their hissing. It is quite hilarious.
She will follow you everywhere and she is really quick with doing so! That little girl can scale our entire living room in about thirty seconds, I swear!
We are also experiencing her newest ability of pulling herself up. Her favorite thing to use at this moment is her car seat; which of course makes me extremely nervous! I am so afraid she is going to lose her balance because the seat rocks when it is just sitting on the floor. We keep it by the front door so when it is time to go somewhere it is right there, ready to go. I'm not sure about everyone else, but because we don't have a garage and live in such a hot and humid area, so we keep her car seat inside so as to avoid the possibility of burning her on the buckles if they have been sitting in the car.
We have had to start baby proofing the house as well. I never would have thought she could get into some of the things that she does! So we have bumpers on our coffee table and outlet plugs in all of the outlets for now and are gradually working on everything else. I need to find cabinet and drawer locks that don't require us to actually install anything (we are renting and not staying at this house permanently).
We are back on board with the solid foods again. For a couple of weeks Ava decided she didn't want to eat anymore so that made things kind of crazy because she wasn't wanting to drink eight ounces of formula either. We have learned that any time she is teething/cutting teeth that we should be ready for her appetite to change. Which is really frustrating since I feel like she is constantly cutting teeth!
She has three teeth and has just recently cut two top teeth; so as of right now she has FIVE.
FIVE TEETH?!
Is this for real???!?!
I really can't believe how fast everything is going by. I swear it is one milestone after the other and it just blows my mind how quickly it all happens. I mean I was told it goes by fast, but geez! This is too fast!!
I mean the other day she took a few steps using her little toy walker!
I almost cried.
Actually, no, I did cry.

(My apologies for the sideways video!)

Last week we had a doctor's appointment.
It was our first time at the "sick" clinic. I was kind of afraid to take her into this office because she wasn't sick, she just had a bad rash that I wanted to get checked out. She had had this rash for a good three weeks now and it just wasn't getting better. If you all know me, you know how difficult it is for us to get out and about, so I do my best to avoid doctor's visits at all costs. Unless of course she has a fever, questionable cough, etc. This rash wasn't showing her any signs of discomfort until the week of the appointment. By that point in time I knew I had to take her in so we could get things sorted out. Brian and I thought it was a yeast infection, but to our surprise it turns out that it was just a really bad skin sensitivity. The doctor (who would hardly let me get a word in, by the way) took a look at her bum and said, "Nope, not yeast. She is allergic to something." I was completely baffled. So she prescribed us a steroid cream to use and told us to keep diaper rash cream on her bum daily. Something like A & D. First off, YUCK! I HATE A & D!!! It smells disgusting and it is just gross. Also, it is not cloth diaper safe! The doc tried pinning the rash on our cloth diapers but I reassured her this is the first time she has ever had a rash like this and we have been cloth diapering her for nine months! I haven't changed soaps and I use the same wash routine I always have. The doctor suggested I just add an extra rinse and see how that helps. Basically I have to play around with it...oh that shall be fun...
Anyways, because the creams weren't safe for our diapers I made some fleece liners to lay against her skin while wearing the diaper creams. We have almost gotten everything cleared up with using a steroid cream called Desonine and by using Lanolin in between. Tried the A & D and I just couldn't stand the way it smelled.
Diaper rash aside, Ava had her hemoglobin checked and she is no longer anemic and no longer needs the iron supplements! Yay!! Thank goodness because those supplements did not help her as far as her tummy issues; we are back to having daily bowel movements! WOOHOO! Isn't it funny how poo gets a mommy excited?? Ha!
The only concerns we had was that the doctor told us that Ava was a little on the underweight side. She said she wasn't worried about it, but it still posed a concern to me. I mean you don't just tell a mom that her baby is underweight and then act like it is no big deal. I really did not like this doctor, btw. She was in and out so fast I felt like I couldn't even explain to her what had been going on. I don't know if she used Ava's adjusted age or her actual age when determining she was underweight. UGH! I will just make a note of it and ask her pediatrician when we go in for our twelve month well visit.
TWELVE MONTHS?!
Insane isn't it?!
This time last year I was being hospitalized for preterm labor. I never thought I would make it through this year without losing all of my hair! I may have gained a few more gray hairs (yes, this momma has some gray)...

What fun things did we do this month??

Avalyn celebrated her first 4th of July!

We were so thankful to be able to spend the day with Brian! Doesn't Avalyn look adorable?! She is wearing a tutu that I made for her and her Daddy's USMC cover.

Daddy, Ava, and Bandit had fun playing after our little photo shoot. If you listen closely you can hear Ava laughing.

She also got to see and witness fireworks for the first time!

(Don't worry, we made sure to practice fire safety and even though some of the sparklers appear really close to Ava, they actually were not.)

Her reaction was priceless! We had absolutely no idea what her reaction was going to be so I was really nervous at first, but as you can tell, she was so excited she didn't know what to do or think.

Avalyn tried a few new foods this month as well!