Eleven Months!

Dear Maya,
My adorable Maya Papaya, little Hazelnut, Doozer, messy buggerface (sorry its true)

This month has been one of such amazing development and firsts. I know that I sound like a broken record, but I'm just blown away by how much you have learned in a matter of weeks. You soak up everything; you surprise me every single day. There is much to talk about, so let's begin...



You are a tadpole! At daycare you have graduated from the little baby ‘Guppies’ room to the mobile baby ‘Tadpoles’ room. As expected, you have transitioned beautifully. I am incredibly grateful to Miss Dilruba, Miss Thamara and Miss Rosa for taking such amazing care of you these last six months, but now you have so much more room to crawl and explore and play with your new teachers and friends. In your new class, you love to stand at the mirror bench, bang and play with the musical instruments, and sit together with the other kids for breakfast and lunch.


your last week as a little Guppy surrounded by all of your favorite toys

All of this activity has made you one very excellent napper! You are down to two daytime naps: one around 9:30 AM (for about an hour) and one around 1:00 PM (for almost two and a half hours). The first few days in your new class really wiped you out. Even with your long afternoon siesta, you were cranky and tired at the end of the day. We’d try to get you home, feed you a little, give you a quick bath and put you to bed, but it was a long day for you my sweet, and you had nothing left in the tank. Now you seem to have adjusted to the new routine and we are back to watching Star and Chica together on the Goodnight Show while daddy makes dinner each night.


watching the goodnight show (with special guest appearance by daddy!)

Each night, we still have the same basic routine: we watch the goodnight show on Sprout, have dinner together, you take your bath and then go to bed. This month we've added a book before dinner (you are too tired at the end of the night to enjoy it) and after you are in pajamas and have said goodnight to daddy, you like to close your bedroom door and turn off your light all by yourself. When the room goes dark, you put your sweet head on my shoulder and I carry you to the glider and give you the last of your evening bottle. These days, you like to drink most of it at dinner, so there are only maybe two or three ounces left for bedtime. This doesn't take long for you to drink at all. Then we say the Shema, and I put you into your crib. You are usually asleep within minutes.


bath time fun


daddy drinks coffee and Maya has a bottle

You will usually sleep until 6:20 on weekdays and as late as 7:15 on weekends. During the week, daddy gets you up and dressed. You like to crawl down the hallway to show me your pretty outfit for the day and watch me dry my hair. You love to feel the warm air on your face. On Saturday mornings, we all hang out in pajamas until after your first nap. You like you play peekaboo in bed with mommy and make the doorstopper in the hallway going booooooooing!




watching mommy dry her hair

You are cruising! You ‘walk’ around the ottoman in the living room and push your cart all over. Look out to everyone and everything in your path! You absolutely love the tv remote, the telephone and crinkling paper/ receipts. You walk around and around the living room to get any and all of these items.



You are getting a top tooth! Your bottom two are officially not the only chompers in that mouth anymore- you have one (possibly two) poking through your top gums right now. (Perhaps another reason for the crankiness)

This month you have had all kinds of fun things to eat. But! The! Big! News! ..is that you had your first bagel (In NY of course). You’ve also tried fish, brussel sprouts, peppers, onions, strawberries, cherries, turkey and pizza crust; all of which you like. However, more than all of those, you adore papaya! This is how you’ve earned your nickname of the month, Maya papaya. You just cannot get enough of it. Even though it’s slippery, you grab as much papaya as you can from your tray and gobble it down. You are also getting much better at using your sippy cup.


first bagel


sippy cup and fish (yum!) and broccoli (eh)

You like to share. You like to offer me your sippy cup at dinnertime, your duckie at bath time and your socks all the time! Interestingly, you never feel compelled to share your pacifier. You also like to share your germs, and both mommy and daddy have been lucky recipients of your latest cold. Yes, you are a good sharer indeed.

You like to put things ‘in’. At home, you love putting your bath toys IN your rinse cup. At daycare, you like to collect toys and put them IN the bin. I hope this desire to always clean up your toys after playing with them sticks around for a long long time.


putting toys away

You are really interacting with your toys and other babies. You love playdates. You love the octopus toy- you take balls out of a bowl on the floor and put them into a slot on the octopus's head. Then you look for the balls to come out of its feet. You like to stack the crayola orbs and make them chime and light up. I love to watch how focused you become on each task. Sometimes you are so hard at work on your own toys, you don’t even notice when Jerry walk into the room.


stacking


playdate with your buddy Nathan

You had your first Thanksgiving! We drove to Queens and had a wonderful holiday! You were so good- smiling and playing with everyone. We watched the parade in the morning and took a long walk while Grandpa, Bubbie, Daddy and Uncle Brian cooked. Then, you sat in your highchair at the table with everyone else and ate turkey and sweet potatoes!


watching the parade together


great grandmas


nosies with Pappa Donny


First Thanksgiving meal- at the head of the table!


thanksgiving table


Maya's first Thanksgiving craft- a handprint turkey!


showing off how you play with your poppin' pals


Playing with Oma's necklace

You met Hammer! Now that Uncle Brian lives in New York, he brought Hammer over to Grandpa's place for Thanksgiving. You really seem to love him; you had so much fun chasing after him and getting big ol wet kisses. Hammer really liked you- it's rare that he isn't the shortest one in a room.




Maya and Hammer and Uncle Bri

You went to your first ‘museum.' While in NY, we had a playdate with Josh, Jordyn and Jared at The New Jersey Children’s Museum. Thankfully they let someone with a name other than J tag along! You had a blast crawling through the tunnel in the infants room, banging on the drum in the music room, voting and co-anchoring then afternoon newscast.


fun in the tunnel


kisses from Jared


anchoring the news


learning early that every vote counts


drums with friends

Your cousin Natalia turned one! We went to Tia Patty and Tio Ilan’s beautiful new home in the Bronx and celebrated your cousin’s first birthday! You got to see Abuelita & Saba, Bubbie & Grandpa, Ila & Rich and Adam & Makiko. You enjoyed the balloons and music and all of the other kids. It was a long day and you were so good. You partied so hard, you napped for over three hours in the car afterwards!


Las Primas



You also went to parties for Riley's 5th birthday and Josh's 1st birthday. You always have fun, exploring new places, playing with new kids and toys. I cant believe it's been almost a whole year since you were born, my sweet girl. I hope you have a blast at the party we are putting together for you.


Coming down the slide at Riley's pajama party


Playing with birthday boy Josh at his party

You are very musical. You’ve started to ‘whistle’ and it’s so cute. You purse your lips and blow- sometimes you really do make a whistling sound! You saw Miss Dee Dee whistling one day and really picked it up! Also, you had one helluva diaper rash this month. It went away once we figured out how to treat it, but for a while I was blowing on your bottom to make sure it was dry before I put the cream or the diaper on you. I think you thought I was whistling to you, so you’ve started doing it when I change you now. You also love the instruments at music class. You like to sway in my lap as we sing and shake your egg shakers during the train song.


music class egg shakers


music class drums

You have made this such a funny, sweet and memorable month. Your giggles are contagious and your smile brightens up even the chilliest winter day.


funny faces in your purple fleece kittly hat


smiles and hugs with Abuelita

I can't believe that in just one month you will be a whole year old. My sweet, this has been an unbelievable year and I can't wait to celebrate with you and all of the people who love you!

Love, Mommy

Ten Months!

Dear Maya,

My energizer infant, my sweet squawk box, my screeching baby pterodactyl, my beautiful girl,

Today you are ten months old. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10! Unreal. This has been a tremendous month for you developmentally, socially, physically… everything! I look back at photos of you from just 2 or 3 months ago and I realize how much you've changed.



Your hair has really grown in. And it’s getting curly! At bath time, I wash your hair and it bounces up into the cutest little ringlets in the back. You may have your daddy’s complexion, eye and hair color… but I think you have my curls. You also have a second tooth. You (understandably) were not very happy with this addition to your mouth; your poor gums ached and you spent several days working on Sophie’s ears and your blue teething ring. You seem to be much better…for now. I’m sure more chompers are on their way.



You crawl so fast! You love moving around and exploring different rooms of the house. One of your favorite discoveries is the door stopper. You long to hear it go boooooooiiinnngggg. You’ve also found the puzzle stool that has been in your room since birth, the windowsill and the air vents.



You are fascinated by the vacuum. Whenever I vacuum the house, you love to crawl up to it. If you are sitting in your high chair or playpen, you sit and follow it all over the room with your eyes. You never sit still, even when we pick you up, you do this mid-air runningman dance. But you will sit in your playpen mesmerized by the thing.



You cannot get enough of Jerry. You will be playing with a toy in one spot and then he walks into the room. Zoom! You are off crawling towards the cat. You adore him. You love to feel his soft fur and sandpaper kisses. Sometimes you try to pull his tail and sometimes you like to lay your head on his side. It’s so sweet. Even when you grab a big handful of fur and pull, he never gets angry with you.You are curious. You want to touch everything. Especially the remote, the phone and the camera. Sometimes its hard to get a picture of you because you are reaching for the lens.



You are beginning to pull yourself up to stand! This began just last weekend here and there. It was a struggle at first, but you quickly got the hang of it. Now you are able to stand up in your crib and let us of know when you are done napping. You love to stand at your music table, holding on with one hand and hitting the colored shapes, flipping the pages on the book and sliding the whammy bar on the guitar with your other hand. You pull yourself up to the ottoman and slap the top of it over and over.



At daycare, you crawl up to the cubbies and pull yourself up to get the toys off of the shelf. You see Nanda or Addison in the minnows room and stand at the gate talking to them. You like make this high pitched AAH! AAH!



Speaking of your friends, you had a very full social calendar this month! You went on a hayride with Colin, Josh and Graciela, you went to Ryan’s First Birthday(!) party in DC, Jodi came to visit, you wore your ladybug costume to the mall for an afternoon with friends, you had an early morning pajama party with Nathan, a Halloween pajama photo shoot with Josh and a playdate with Riley at her house.







Every day, Daddy and I pick you up from daycare and go home. While he makes dinner, you and I play in the bedroom with Jerry and watch The Goodnight Show on Sprout. We sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ with Nina and the ‘Happy Happy Birthday’ song with Chica. Then it’s time for dinner and your bath. Your love bath time and so do I. I actually look forward to this time with you all day. You could sit and play with your rinse cup and toys forever; and I could sit there and watch you the whole time. I used to have to hand you toys, but now you reach for your blue whale or yellow puffer fish. You even pick up your wash cloth from the bottom of the tub.



You have so much energy.. until you don’t. You play and crawl and laugh and go-go-go until you poop out. You get this look on your face and it’s time for a nap. Most of the time we can put you into your crib and you roll onto your tummy and go right to sleep (I said you were pooped) but other times you will play in your crib for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes amused by the monkeys on your wall, the shadows the curtains make on the floor, the bars on the crib, anything and everything. Eventually you plop down and face plant into the mattress.





This month you had a visit from Bubbie and Grandpa. We had so much fun! We went pumpkin picking and to a fall festival. Boy did you love the animals!









Also, Bubbie and Grandpa got your first pair of shoes! OK, they are really still just baby shoes, more like slippers than real shoes but you look like such a big girl!You like to pull them off as well as your socks, I hope we can keep your little feet warm this winter!



Your first Halloween was quite a celebration. First we got into the spirit of the season by going to a Fall Festival with pumpkin picking and a hayride. Then on Friday, you were in a parade and attended a party at your daycare. On Sunday we went to the neighborhood block party as well as the mall for trick or treating around the stores where you got your first piece of Halloween candy (Godiva of course)! Finally on Monday (which was actually Halloween) you joined a couple of the neighborhood kids and went door to door.









You are a ham. A jokester. A ball of giggles. You love to play. You will initiate peekaboo by pulling a blanket up over your face. We say "Where's Maya?" Then you pulls it down and smile that gummy sweet grin as we yell "There she is!" This goes on and on, you never get tired of it. Similarly, you also love it when I hide around a corner or behind a door. I peek out and say “Hi!!!!” and you laugh and laugh. We do this in the bathtub, in the hallway, in the car…. You love it!



You say ma ma ma and da da da – I know you are just parroting what you hear but I love to hear you say it. My heart actually swells up when I hear you babble softly to yourself, ma ma ma as you play or when you see me. You have this soft, gravelly voice. I look forward to hearing what you say next. You eat black beans and raspberries now (but not together), you like tofu but not beef and you love quinoa. You are able to give yourself a bottle (when we aren’t looking- otherwise you pretend you cant so we will do it for you) and you are using your sippy cup very well.



I recently read that “If you take a toy away from her, your increasingly assertive baby is likely to object.” Oh. Hells. Yes. This is you. You hate giving up an instrument at the end of a song in music class. That said, you continue to love music class. You love banging the drums and crawling to the middle of the circle grinning ear to ear while kicking /stomping your feet. You shake the eggs and maracas, you follow the scarves as we wave them all around. I am definitely going to enroll you in this class again over the winter.





My sweet, you surprise me in the best ways. The other morning, you and I were cuddling in bed watching Sesame Street. Elmo came on and you laughed, dropping your pacifier. It rolled away a bit from where we were snuggled and you reached for it, picked it up, turned it over and placed it back into your mouth before laying back onto the pillow. There I lay, watching you. When did you learn to do that? It’s these everyday little moments that totally amaze me. A few weeks later you were at a party and there were some stacking cups on the floor. You crawled up to some and put a small one inside a bigger one! Again- when did you learn how to do this? I remember when we first started at daycare, all of the older babies in the room seemed so grown up. Now YOU are the oldest baby in the room. In a few weeks, you will begin to transition from the infant Guppy room to the Tadpoles room with the rest of the mobile babies. You and Addison will join your old friends Elliott, LuLu and Emily. And of course Riley!



I have always loved the fall- but I have especially enjoyed it this year because of you. Watching you play and examine a crimson leaf, hearing the crunch as it crumbles in your hands… now more than ever, you bring wonder and joy to my life. Thank you for your smile and your laughter. You are so good natured and I love you more and more each day.

Love,

Mommy