The Nye Family: 11 Months!

Charlotte is now entering the last month of her first year! Hard to believe that this time last year we were celebrating graduations, having baby showers, and doing residency orientation. Now Charlotte is crawling and cruising all over the place. Her personality emerges more and more every month. For the most part she is a really sweet, happy baby. She is able to have a good attitude and keep a smile on her face even when we mess around with her schedule or keep her up past her bedtime. However, she is strong-willed and lets us know when things aren't going her way. I guess I have been a little surprised that an eleven month old is capable of being defiant and manipulative, but she sure is at times!
The month of May was wonderful for our little family. I was on geriatrics, so we got to enjoy a more "normal" life for a change. No nights, no call, no weekends, and a week of vacation ... a life I could get used to. Given that I had such an easy schedule, I had intentions of doing multiple posts to document our month (mother's day, the beach, trip to McLean, etc). Instead, I was too busy enjoying life and ~~becoming obsessed with~~ reading Bringing Up Bebe and trying to figure out how Brandon and I are going raise Charlotte "French" in Birmingham, AL ... which is no small feat.
Now here's our eleven month old! (who has no interest in posing for pictures, so this is probably our worst set yet)

Trying to keep her hair swept to the side ... impossible! It is growing straight down!

Hair finally growing in!

Trying to keep her sitting for two seconds so we can get a picture!

Always has those feet crossed!

*Height and weight - not sure, we go back to the pediatrician for a 12 month check-up

*Diaper size - still finishing up a box of size 3's (and our blow-out problem seems to have pretty much resolved on its own, not sure what the change was) but will probably move to size 4 next

*Clothing size - really variable depending on the brand, but mostly 12 months

*Eats - Charlotte is still drinking formula (usually 4-5 bottles per day) and eating canned baby food. Her favorite canned foods are chicken, mango, risotto dinner; any of the fruits; peas; spinach. Overall she isn't too picky but doesn't seem to like tomatoes or carrots very much (although she recently ate a sliced tomato and seemed to enjoy it). This month we have ventured into "real" food. At the beach we let her try ice cream (which of course she LOVED) and goldfish. She has also eaten bananas, strawberries, blueberries, mango, and avocado. Now that she is eating actual food we have changed a lot of our grocery shopping to Whole Foods - at least buying the "dirty dozen" fruits and vegetables there as well as most of our meat. I am currently in the process of reading French Babies Eat Everything. Brandon and I consider ourselves to be foodies and want Charlotte to be an adventurous eater despite living in a culture that encourages young children to sustain themselves on chicken fingers and buttered noodles.

Enjoying breakfast at Over Easy

Lunch date with me at Zoe's Kitchen

*Sleep

This is the major battle ground. Our sweet child who has not ever been much of a napper but always went to sleep peacefully at bedtime, is now fighting us tooth and nail every night. Putting her to bed used to take two minutes ... it now takes an hour, on average - and it is an hour of pure hell. We can tell she is exhausted at night because she collapses on the floor or couch, shuts her eyes, then pops back up, barely able to hold her eyes open. We give her a bottle, read a book, etc, but the second we plop her down in the crib she screams bloody murder. We have tried valiantly to let her cry it out, but she now throws up if we let her scream for more than a few minutes. So our nights are spent letting her fall asleep in our arms, putting her in the crib, her screaming, picking her back up, fighting her to fall back asleep, putting her in the crib, scream ...... repeat, repeat, repeat, until finally we put her in the crib and she stays asleep. Well, I say she stays asleep - we still get up for the occasional one AM bottle. Miserable. Ideas, suggestions, etc would be most appreciated.

Naps? Well, those continue to be few and far between. Nothing makes her more angry than the suggestion of a nap. Strangely enough, she has multiple personalities ... Brandon picks her up at daycare today and asked how she is doing with her naps. They respond that Charlotte is one of the best nappers in the class! All they have to do is give her a paci and she falls asleep without a fight! Are we talking about the same baby???

Helping fold the laundry after a rare solid nap (see the handprint??)

*Likes - baths, showers, the pool, walks, feeding Brutus her food, sharing her food or paci with other people, waving goodbye

*Dislikes - going to sleep, being dropped off at daycare, getting her diaper changed (impossible now!)

Still loves taking walks and now gets very excited when she sees the stroller

*Milestones

Charlotte is now saying "ma-ma". We think she might have the two of us confused as all I ever hear is "da-da" and all Brandon ever hears is "ma-ma", but nonetheless I was excited to hear an "m" come out of her mouth. She is pulling up on everything and cruising on the furniture, but hasn't taken any steps yet. She is walking everywhere when we hold her hands, and she is walking with a walker. If she is in the right mood she can stand by herself without holding on to anything for 5-10 seconds. She is waving goodbye and now likes to share her food and paci with us. One of her favorite new tricks is to lean over the side of her highchair and feed Brutus her food.

*Visit to Grandpa's Office

On the floor of Grandpa's office

Mother's Day

My first mother's day was wonderful. Brandon and I both had the day off for a change. Every other holiday this year, at least one of us has worked. I got a pair of earrings and a lovely card early in the day, then Brandon surprised me that night with an iPad (which I really wanted but had become convinced I was not getting)!

Mother's Day 2012! (Mom reading aloud and teaching us how we are going to bring up our bebe!)

Mother's Day Brunch at Little Savannah

Beach Trip

We took Charlotte to the beach during my vacation week. We decided to try out a new place, Rosemary Beach, and absolutely loved it! Charlotte did great considering she was in a new environment and completely thrown off of her schedule (I guess it helps that her "schedule" at home is ill-defined). Although she was not crazy about the sand until the last day, she loved the water. We pictured renting two beach chairs and an umbrella in which Brandon and I would relax while Charlotte played in the sand in between us. Well Charlotte's favorite part of the entire trip was sitting by herself in one of the chairs. So Brandon and I took turns sitting in the sand while Queen Marie stretched out in her chaise lounge (I feel sure that the French parents would not allow for such behavior)

Charlotte's first trip to the beach! (Separate post with more pictures to come)

Walking in the sand for the first time

First taste of ice cream!

Eating goldfish for the first time

First time in the pool

Her favorite part of the beach ... the beach chair

Guess who FINALLY has two teeth??

French Parenting
Loved this book! I actually had some time this month to get a little reading done. As a working mom this book resonated with me in a way that others, which make me feel like I am corrupting my child for not having her attached to my hip or breast 24 hours a day, do not. Some things we are working on right now:
- Three meals a day with an afternoon snack, instead of all-day grazing (i.e. stuffing puffs or mum-mums in her mouth every time she fusses)
- Using "no" sparingly, but really meaning it when we say it
- Teaching Charlotte some boundaries and making her respect them and us (not going so well ... I still feel like Charlotte controls us instead of the other way around)
- Charlotte learning to take pleasure in her time alone and being able to entertain herself for short amounts of time (REALLY not going well, but it's a work in progress)

A day in the life of an intern on geriatrics (at Lucy's coffee shop)

Trip to McLean, VA
For Memorial Day weekend, Mom, Charlotte, and I flew up to McLean to visit Grandma / Gigi (to Charlotte). We had a wonderful visit! Uncle Anthony and Aunt Tricia had already planned to visit the Inlow's in Charlottesville, so everyone was kind enough to drive over to visit us in McLean. Overall, Charlotte did very well on the plane.