Thursday, November 1, 2012

11 Months!


It just doesn't seem possible, but it's true...Piper is 11 months old today!  Her first year is going by way too fast for me!

The most exciting news this month (as far as I'm concerned) is that Piper is now sleeping through the night! This past week has been like my literal dream come true.  Kris and I were finally sleep deprived enough to do what we never seemed able to with Riley and tried some sleep training.  I hate not going to my babies when they cry, but I knew that we were going to have to go this tough route so that all of us could get some much needed shut eye and so that I could regain some of my sanity.  To my surprise, she was much more on board with this than I thought she be, I had nightmares about a 2 hour screamfest before we got started.  Our plan was to put her in bed awake instead of rocking and nursing to sleep and then let her try to settle to sleep on her own.  The longest that she has cried was about 15 minutes and after that she is usually out for at least 8 hours. I maybe shouldn't celebrate just yet, but ....woohoo!  Each night has been getting better and better and she now only fusses for about a minute before she crashes.
There is so much to love about Piper at 11 months....she is sweet and silly and also very playful.  Piper has a lot to say to us while she doesn't have as many words as Roo did at this age she is definitely trying to immitate our sounds and words.  It took her a little while, but she is finally saying mama and I know that everyone will be shocked to know that it's my little besties favorite word now.   Animals are always exciting to Piper and if you ask her what a dog says she responds with her "bark" which is "Ah, Ah, Ah". 
She gives us wet sloppy kisses and big toothy grins (she has 6 teeth now).  Piper loves playing with her sister, singing songs, pulling up to stand, reading books and closing doors.
11 months also has it's challenges...we have seen the triumphant return of separation anxiety and it seems to be worse now that it ever has been.  She doesn't want me to leave her sight and there is relentless screaming that ensues during the times that I have to leave her with her Dad or Gigi for a little bit.  I will be soooo glad when this subsides, it makes it pretty tough for everyone involved. 
Now that she is on the move, there is no keeping her from getting into everything these days. Her crawling has gotten faster and she has now taken on kind of a one knee one foot combo like a crab walk to get where she wants to go. The only thing that is stopping her for the moment is the stairs, because she has pretty much become an expert on climbing up and down just one for now. she loves peeking into the cupboards and knows exactly when she's getting into something she shouldn't. I love the little grin she gives me when I ask "Piper....what are you doing?" just as she's about to dive into something good, but I cringe at the fiery little temper that emerges when we have to take something away or redirect her curiosity....it amazing how strong such a little person can be. And here I had her pegged as my quiet, gentle soul...I may have spoken too soon. 
We adore our sweet little sissy! Happy 11 months Pipey!

Trick or Treat!

Riley adores playing dress-up and she probably spends about 90% of her day parading around the house in her princess dresses, so she was pretty excited about Halloween and an excuse to be in costume outside of our house. Oh...and of course the candy!  No big surprise to us, Riley wanted to dress as a princess this year and she chose Sleeping Beauty for her costume and Piper made a pretty cute little pumpkin. 

Riley's school had a Halloween costume parade and also a party with fun games and crafts and of course some special treats and Piper and I got to join in the fun too. 


On Halloween night, our friends the Abotes, had us over to their house for pizza before heading out to trick or treat.  At one point, Riley had thought that maybe she would rather stay home and pass out candy instead of trick or treat herself, but we usually don't get very many trick or treaters at our door so we decided just to leave a bowl of candy on the porch and convinced her to come along. What's not to love about costumes, candy and running crazy with your best girlfriends?  I was impressed by Riley's good manners at our neighbor's doors and she made laugh with her excitement over each piece of candy that she got.  Piper on the other hand, stayed snuggled up in her carrier and would have preferred to be home in bed. 




When we called it a night, Riley and her friends had covered a lot of ground and ended up with buckets too heavy to carry on their own.  We let Riley have about 3 pieces of candy throughout the night...enough for a pretty good sugar buzz.  So much fun! 
Happy Halloween!