11 months, say what?! There is no way that our baby is going to be one in one month. How did that happen? This past month has been so sweet. Juno makes us laugh and smile all day long. She is funny, strong willed, but also cuddly, loving and just the sweetest thing in the world. This month Juno celebrated her first Halloween — she made the b.e.s.t little old lady there ever was (see pictures below) — painted her first pumpkin, went to Boo at the Zoo and had lots of Yaya and cousin time too!
She is definitely the pack leader when it comes to her and her twin cousin, Raleigh. She steals toys from him, gets him to follow her around the house and gets up to no good while he is just the sweetest thing in the world and gets roped into doing whatever she wants. Ha! Juno is enthralled with her big cousin, Elliette, and laughs at her and stares at her whenever they are together and I am pretty sure she wants to be just like her when she grows up. Ellie always is saying how “chute” (cute) Juno is and is such a great big cousin to her. Ellie is still telling us all about how Juno was “damma” (grandma) for Halloween. Twice a week Juno gets to play all day with her other cuz, Micah, and they have so much fun together. How sweet that she gets to grow up surrounded by cousins? Juno continues to spend three days a week plus weekends when I have shoots with her Yaya and the days she gets to have with her are something special. Juno loves her Yaya so much and I am so thankful to have some time to work on all the photography things sans baby, yet I still am able to spend many days with her and have a flexible schedule too. Parenting leave is so nice.
Juno finally got her first teeth! Her two bottom teeth came in first thing this past month and while her gummy smile may be gone, her two little teeth are just as cute (except for the biting, which she thinks is hysterical). Speaking of teeth, Juno has finally got the hang of eating! After two sessions of feeding therapy, Juno can pretty much eat anything now. She loves, loves, loves to eat, is over any sort of baby food or purée, and just wants to eat whatever we are having. While we are still going slow with introducing new foods to her since she’s had some allergies, she is overall doing great. So far the only things she can’t have are avocados and now parmesan/aged cheeses. We still haven’t done any soy yet [update since writing: we just tried soy for the first time and so far so good. We will see how her tummy does over the next week or so with frequent exposures but fingers crossed!] and so far are trying to limit dairy to help her tummy, but that’s proving to be difficult because her favorite food is by far cheese (minus parmesan which she reacted to) but give her soft shredded cheese, string cheese or baby bell cheese and she is one happy girl. She also loves freeze-dried strawberries, fresh blueberries, French fries (another favorite), Mac N’ Cheese and steamed broccoli. For breakfast she loves toast with either a little peanut butter or a little cream cheese or scrambled eggs with fresh or freeze-dried fruit!
We aren’t quite sure how much Juno weighs right now, but we are hopeful that she’s gained quite a bit with all this new eating that she’s been doing. We are anxious to know how much she weighs at her one year appointment next month. Hopefully she’ll be over 16 pounds. She definitely is feeling heavier and our arms have started to get tired after holding her for a while so that is good! She’s still in size 3 diapers and is mostly in 6 month or 6-9 month clothes.
Our sleep update will be quick this month because sleep has been pretty rough again. I feel like it changes every single month when I write these posts. One month she’ll be sleeping pretty great and the next hardly at all! Who knows, it’s always changing! Right now she’s in a no nap and a wake up every hour or two all night long sleep phase. We failed miserably at our attempt to sleep train a few weeks ago. I’ve now been telling myself that she’ll sleep when she is ready and I’m trying to enjoy all these sweet cuddles. In the meantime, send me all your sleep tips. We have bought sleep plans, read books, done the research, tried multiple methods — nothing so far has gotten this girl to sleep through the night.
Juno continues to crawl all around, pulls herself up on everything and one day she even took a couple of steps although she hasn’t since. She loves to walk along all the furniture, in her walker and while pushing her walker. We have had to majorly babyproof because there is no stopping this little babe. Her newest favorite thing to do is to “somersault” and to imitate me doing yoga. She also loves to wave “bye” when she crawls around. She thinks she’s so funny when she’s booking it to another room but stops to wave to us in the process.
This month we are looking forward to celebrating Juno’s first Thanksgiving and getting in the Holiday spirit with her. Last year this sweet pea made her appearance just after Thanksgiving and I feel like we didn’t do all of the Christmas and holiday things that we normally do because we were soaking up every moment with her as a newborn so this year we are excited to decorate the house, meet Santa for the first time, open presents, look at the lights, and go to all the Christmas things! Until next month when my baby turns ONE … Please, time, slowwwww down. My mama heart can’t take it.
