Beatrix at 11 months

Beatrix is 11 months old. She loves to cruise around the room. She loves to listen to music and dance. Now, she can clap her hands and say "Good, good" when we sing.

She has two teeth, and, boy, does she use them. She now eats pretty much everything we eat and feeds herself. She is our most petite kid, but is known as the bottomless pit because she is constantly eating, wanting to eat, or taking the food you are eating. I call her my little chef because she really hasn't found a food she doesn't like. She especially loves pizza, oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit.

She also has devised a system for getting you to the food she wants. When you are holding her, she holds her arm out like a rudder and points the way she wants you to go, which is usually to the kitchen, to a specific cabinet where we keep the crackers.She also has everyone in the house trained to share their food with her. She just crawls over and makes a gimme motion with her hand.

Though she isn't quite walking yet, she is quite the climber. One night, at bath time, she was standing by the tub. This always freaks Ella out, and she yells, "The baby's going to fall in the tub!" We always assure her, "She's not quite tall enough to fall into the tub." But on this particular day, I look over and Beatrix has one knee reaching up toward the edge. I say, "Beatrix! Don't" She looks at me and tries again. I correct her again. Then she turns around and holds out her hand like "Calm down people. I know exactly what I am doing!" The next night while I was helping Ella out of the tub, I look down and Beatrix has her knee over the tub and is on her way out!

I also think of her as our little Montessori baby because she loves to have little work project. Her favorite thing from Christmas was a box of old candles that Brent's grandmother gave us. We've pretty much given it over to her because she likes playing with them and moving them around. The other day, I was cooking and she popped up with a ziploc bag like, "I know just the thing for this!" She crawled over to her candles and started loading candles into her bag.


Her next favorite toy is her sisters' box of markers, which she takes out of the box and puts them back in. She also loves putting lids on things, and moving things from one container to another, so I made her a basket of things to open and close. After I gave it to her, I discovered that she needed things to put in her boxes so I gave her some stands from our dollpins. She loved this.