11 Months Old!

riley is 11 months old. she's such a little girl now.
as you can see, she hasn't quite mastered the spoon yet, but she is still a great eater, with amazingly cute pincer grasp.
she isn't quite walking yet, but she will stand and cruise preferentially now.
she says a few words, such as "eye," "cat," and "light." no "mama/dada" yet, though.

we're quite proud of her accomplishments!

oh, in case you were wondering . . . we survived our brief illness. everyone is back to normal now except we'll now never catch up on the lost sleep!

winter has arrived

we are sick. riley has a gi bug and an upper respiratory tract infection, and matt and i are battling similar viruses. ugh. we put riley to bed at 5pm, and matt and i are struggling to stay up until 8pm.

last night was tough. riley woke up at 3am and would not go back to sleep, probably bc she feels awful. matt thought he'd rocked her back to sleep at about 4am--until she poked his cornea and said, "eye?" and then she sat up, pointed to the dark lamp and said, "-ight? -ight?"

we were pretty lethargic today as a result. i did manage to get riley's pictures taken today as her 11 month photo shoot is due. she refused to smile for any of the pictures, though, and then she pooped everywhere, and so maybe i had a lapse in judgement in taking her. well, at least the pictures will be memorable. you can see in the photo above the remnants of a great picture day outfit . . .

christmas/birthday wishlists

riley and i have had lots of requests for us to share our christmas lists . . .
so we'll take the risk of being tacky for the ease of our ever-generous family

www.alliwantforchristmas.com

search under "find a friend":
donnah mathews

the list includes about 3 gift requests for me and dozens for riley!

Giving Thanks, part 2

Mommy gives thanks for . . .
NAPTIME!
(Riley here is just waking up from her nap, cheerful, with socks in hand, dollies by her side)

Daddy is thankful for . . .

PATRIOTS football (that's where he is right now, lucky duck!)

Giving Thanks

This year we are thankful for many things . . .

FOOD
-Riley now has the teeth to eat all of the many things she loves!


FUN
-Riley has many toys to play with and many playmates with whom to share.
(Notice in the picture below Auntie Michelle napping on the floor behind us?? She had just returned from volunteering in India, and she came straight to Boston to see us for the holiday! Now that's something to be thankful for!)



FAMILY
-Riley has aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, grandparents, cats . . .
Below are the 3 nanas . . .

peek-a-boo never gets old around here

peek-a-boo!
happy thanksgiving everyone--

riley, how old are you?

i'll tell you a secret: riley and i are practicing for her first birthday party next month.
i ask her, "how old are you?" and she puts up one finger.
don't tell anyone. i want it to be a surprise for her birthday.

by the way, riley also now says in a garbled baby voice, "cat" when a furball walks by;
"oh-oh" when she drops her cup or doll;
"eye" when she p0kes a cat or me in the eye;
and "hi" when i sneak by her crib in the morning, hoping that she's still asleep.

any day now she'll figure out that mama/dada stuff . . .

brunch

nana plante turned 40-ish this weekend, and so we all met for brunch. riley ate more than me . . .

she stole my bacon . . .

here she tried potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese.

she also sampled watermelon, cantalope, bagel, french toast, blueberry muffin, roast chicken, a mushroom and pepper omelet, ham chunks, pulled pork, garlic mashed potatoes, and apple juice.

i wish i'd gotten a bite of that pulled pork . . .

i cleaned the floor twice w babywipes and then gave up and left a mess. i tipped the server extra. riley also had a big poopy diaper in the restaurant (see the above foods that she sampled), and so the server got an even bigger tip. what can you do?

children's museum

matt and i went to the children's museum over the weekend. they have this great toddlers' room where riley has a blast. the first picture is her going too quickly down the slide (which she loved and i hated). the second picture is her in the "non walkers" area. it's a huge, padded pen filled w different shaped balls. you can see a little boy, sam, behind her in one of the pictures. riley had just stolen his ball and quickly crawled away.

the last two pictures are riley and a walker. i was afraid she'd fall and break one of her 5+ teeth, but matt told me i'm too nervous.

favorite book

every day, riley and i read this book: "Eight Silly Monkeys." you know this book--eight silly monkeys jumping on the bed/one fell off and bumped his head/momma called the doctor and the doctor said/"no more monkeys jumpin' on the bed!"

riley pulls it off her bookshelf herself (it is the largest book on the bottom shelf, so it may simply be a coincidence). she turns the pages (never at the right time and never one page at a time), and she pokes at those monkeys very intently.

generations

kathy convinced me to spend my day off attending the st. antoine's nursing home craft fair. nannie eunice is a resident there, and we tried to get a picture of the four generations: great-grandma eunice, nana kathy, daddy matt, and riley.

waterbabies

swim lessons, part 2.
we decided to sign riley up for a second session of waterbabies at the ymca. it isn't so much that she didn't learn a darn thing for the first six weeks of lessons (sometimes she appears to notice that she's in the water), but it's also great daddy-riley bonding time. here she is, on the slide. our goal for these six weeks is for riley to kick once in a while . . .