Jillian is 11 months old

The one month countdown is on until we celebrate when this little cutie turns one! I am at the point now where I am really clearly remembering the final preparations I was making this time last year and all the emotions I was feeling waiting for her to finally be here! And now, here we are with this perfect and beautiful, spunky little baby who is quickly becoming a little girl.

This past month, Jillian is becoming more and more independent and maybe a touch strong-willed! She loves to stand all by herself and has even taken one step a few different times. Mostly, though she would prefer to just stand and laugh because she is so excited she is doing it! Then she will either lunge for one of us or just lower herself ever-so-carefully back to the safe floor. She will challenge herself by twisting in place, clapping, or throwing her hands up in the air. Her balance amazes me! I am positive she could run if she would get up enough courage to try it out based on how well she can stand alone.

Her new favorite things to do are to play "So Big" (see my last post), and to point at just about everything. We went to the zoo for the first time that she was really able to appreciate it and I swear her finger was just out and swinging from animal to animal the whole time. But she does that at the mall, at the park, at the house, wherever and then loves to "talk" about whatever she is pointing to.

She still likes to give me fits about what she eats (or the lack of what she eats, I guess I should say!) I struggle to find something that will always please her, but it really doesn't seem to affect her much, so maybe I should just stop worrying!

Jillian seems to be the true definition of a baby, meaning that we finally baby-proofed our house. We really have a whole set of baby proofing stuff in our cabinet that we never even pulled out to use with Meredith because she just left everything alone, but Jillian's favorite past-time while I get ready in the morning has been pulling out every bottle of old shampoo, etc from under the sink. So, in an effort to keep her from ingesting some pills or soap, we finally locked up our cabinets, and I am guessing there is more to come in that arena!

I have also been so proud of her this month, as she quickly follows us from room-to-room she has let me teach her how to go down our step into the living room without falling every time. I worked with her several times, showing her how to turn around so she could slip her feet down to the floor (instead of her head!) and after just a few lessons, she got it and does it very gracefully now! This helps her keep up her speed in racing off to find out what big sister is up to or to try to sneak away to hopefully find the bathroom door open to see what she can get into! :)