The Powers that Be . . .: Crawling, standing, teething, and swimming!

Okay, its way past time for an update! Last time I posted anything about Samantha she was 8 months old, today she is 11 months and 4 days old! She is growing so fast. She started crawling at 9mo, 4days! She is a super speedy crawler and we love to chase eachother around the house! Now she is easily pulling herself to a standing position. She gets around very well and has no problem reaching something she wants, including the remote control and my phone. And she knows when she's not suppose to have either of those items because she speedily crawls away with the item in her hand. It's just such a joy to watch her develop and I thank God she is so healthy and happy!

I can't believe she will celebrate her first birthday in less than one month. We have plans to go to Atlantha, GA for her birthday so we can celebrate with some family. I don't know "how" we will celebrate because I'm not a fan of the modern "let your child dive into a birthday cake" celebration. In fact, Samantha has never really had sugar, I mean the sweet treat kind. I am definetly not feeding her stuff that other babies might eat. No grain/cereal stuff, no juice, and lots of fermented foods, and raw milk . . . call me crazy but with all the research I've done I feel like a traditional diet is best. And I know that I can't control what she eats forever so I'm motivated to give her a strong foundation and introduce her to traditional foods and taste her palette will hopefully prefer later on in life.

Healthy chunky monkey!

She is still nursing, only two times a day now. She had a case of hives a couple weeks ago so I stopped nursing to narrow down causes and my supply went south really fast. I had continued to pump but it didn't help much. So because of that I recently started supplementing her milk source with raw, organic goats milk. She seems to like it fine and takes all eight ounces from the bottle very easily. She's also discovering some new foods and seems to like most of them. One of her favorite foods is avocado. I let it ferment in whey for a couple hours and that gives her more probiotics and enzymes. She eats it up with eagerness! She will eat other fermented foods as well, sweet potato, dairy kefir, and cod liver oil. I just try to keep it simple and let her tell me if she's ready for something different. At about ten months her bottom two front teeth came in so she will knaw on a carrot from time to time. She loves to chew on some carrot and will carry it in her mouth as she crawls from room to room!

Crawling around with carrot in tow!

Finally got a high chair. She loves to sit up high and see all the action in the kitchen.

She's handled teething very well I think. I can tell when she's a little sore so I'll give her some gel but other than that she seems to be taking it in stride. Although recently she has starting chewing on the furniture. She can easily pull herself up to a standing position and will do so with the dining room table. She can reach the bottom of the table with her mouth so she tries to "bite" it. She doesn't do any damage and soon realizes that it's not very comfortable to her mouth.

Like I said, she can easily pull herself up to a standing position and is exploring a whole new world two feet up. She amazes me with her strength and has great leg control. She has recently started picking up her feet and trying to walk as she holds on to something. Once in awhile she will let go and be hands free for a second. I wonder when she will really start walking?

Boxes are one of her favorite toys.

The day before Samantha turned ten months we participated in our first swim play-date with some mommies from our church. A lady who routinely takes care of Samantha in the nursery invited us over to her house to swim with other babies Samantha's age. It was so much fun and Samantha took to the water like a fish. She did so well that we've gone back to the pool a couple times since then. It's a great way for her to interact with other babies and she really likes the water. I guess I need to be thinking about swim lessons.

Busy little swimmer!

We went home to Tennessee for the Fourth of July weekend. It was a fast trip but we got to see Celia and enjoy the house for a bit. Brent did alot of work on the yard and Celia helped him clean up some debris, making the house look really nice. Samantha did well for the most part but she didn't sleep very well in the pack-n-play. She's quicly outgrowing that thing so I need to find another option. We have a few trips in the near future and getting good sleep is essential to having a successful trip. In October we will be going to Oklahoma for Tammy's wedding and then January brings the big trip to Cancun with my entire family! Looking forward to Samantha meeting and interacting with more of her cousins.