Sweet Baby Elsie: 11/7 months!

Wow, Elsie is ELEVEN months old! You know what that means, one year is just around the corner. I was thinking to myself today, "Maybe I should start thinking about what we're going to do for Elsie's birthday. Nah, I'll wait until after Christmas." And then it occurred to me to me that Elsie's birthday is like a week after Christmas and will be here before we know it. Ha ha.

Elsie is doing great. She had a few little colds here and there but nothing terrible. She's made a lot of improvements this month in her gross motor skills. It's so exciting to watch her learn new things.

We're still in about the same place as far as oral feedings go; Elsie still will not eat purees or very much of anything by mouth. But she is doing great with her "hard munchables". Elsie will pick up and put in her mouth just about anything that we put on her highchair tray. She doesn't eat them, remember, but she sucks on things and practices chewing with her teethless gums. Some of Elsie's favorite munchables are honey wheat pretzels, regular pretzels, licorice sticks, raw green beans, and celery sticks. Oh, and Cheetos. What can I say, she is her mother's daughter! Other things that we've tried and had some success with are chicken-n-biscuit crackers, bbq-flavored Wheat Thins, dried mango slices, Nilla Wafers, apple slices, big chunks of turkey, and oh there's a bunch more, but I can't think of anything else right now. Elsie also likes to do it herself; if we put a spoon on her tray with some food on it, she'll pick it up and (usually) put it in her mouth. Of course, once she discovers that there was food on the spoon, she spits it out, but, still, it's a good step. Or we put a blob of food on her tray and let her play with it, dip her pretzels in it, and make messes. Things she's "eaten" this way are applesauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, Spaghetti-O's, sweet potatoes, Ranch dressing, strawberry jam, and chocolate frosting. She still spits out the majority of any food that ends up in her mouth if she hasn't put it there herself. But, on a positive note, she is tasting lots of different foods and that is a good thing.

Elsie had a check-up this month with the eye doctor. It was pretty quick; he told us that Elsie's vision is normal when she wears her glasses, which means that the glasses are doing their job, and to keep wearing the glasses. We'll see him again in March.

We haven't started the Synagis shots yet, which is good, that means that RSV is not rampant around our state yet. But with the snow and cold weather that has recently arrived, I'm guessing RSV will start rearing its ugly head very soon. Please don't come over if you or your kids are sick!!!

Elsie finally decided to roll over all the way onto her tummy a few weeks ago, as I mentioned in my last post. She now uses rolling as a mode of transportation and rolls all around on the floor to get to new and exciting places, like under the footrest of the recliner. She is more predisposed to roll to her right, so sometimes she'll roll herself up to a wall and get stuck, not yet figuring out that she can roll the other direction to get away from the wall. Elsie spends more and more time playing on her tummy, which is beneficial in so many ways. Tummy time is huge for development. She's really putting things together very quickly lately. It's pretty exciting. Our physical therapist says she wouldn't be surprised if Elsie were at least army crawling by her birthday. We'll see!