Petra is eleven months old!

Yes, I know this is late. Before anyone gets all “Boohoo the poor neglected second child” on me, I’d just like to point out that eleven months was also when I sort of dropped the ball with Silas’ monthly updates, too. OKAY?

This month has been pretty good. Petra is back to her usual cheerful self, mostly. Even when teething, she continues to be a great baby.

She’s very much into everything. She wants to climb the steps. She wants to chase the cat. She wants to read the big kid books with the crumplable pages. She wants to feed herself!

Petra is so particular about what she wants. I don’t remember Silas being this way until he was a good deal older. Petra isn’t just hungry, she wants a banana. Specifically. Oh, and it has to be sliced; she does not want to eat it straight out of the peel. What is she, a monkey? It wouldn’t be so bad if she could talk, but Oh. My. Goodness. There’s a lot of guess and check. Her way of saying, “No, thank you, I would prefer something else,” is to fling her food/spoon/dish as far as she can. I’m being reminded, daily, of why we have a dog.

She loves to take a bath, but she only wants to take a bath with Silas. Whether he wants to or not. And no, no one needs their hair washed. Yogurt is the hip new conditioner, didn’t you know?

Luckily, she does a bit of baby sign–far more than Silas ever did. She signs “more more more” very nicely, as well as “all done!” She also points and claps a ton. I’m trying to teach her signs for different foods. That’s going pretty slowly, but at least she seems interested.

She’s talking a bit, still just baby words–“Mama” (which is starting to mean me, now, and not “food”), “Dada,” “kitty,” “Siyas,” “ball,” and “book” are all pretty clear. She also mimics words very clearly. I don’t know if she knows what a “dinosaur” is, but she can say it. Lots of input on that word…

I’m astonished at how much she understands. One day, she bit me, hard, on the shoulder. I said, in a very gentle voice, “No, no. We don’t bite. Biting hurts. You hurt me.” Her whole face crumpled and she started to cry. I think she really got what I was telling her.

Her seventh tooth just broke through (I guess when she officially turned 11 months, she still just had six). She likes to experiment with biting all sorts of things.

We’ve noticed that she’s very into rabbits right now. Brian, of course, is a rabbit, but she also keeps bringing us books that feature rabbits. It’s an odd obsession, but very cute.

Month 12 is off to a good start…Hard to believe it’s been nearly a year.