11 months old

Baby Champuru does the sign for “cracker”

In one month, Baby Champuru will be a year old. 11 months sure went by in a flash.

This month:

• Cruising to walking. At nine months, Baby Champuru was cruising, at ten months, she started taking her first unsupported steps and has been steadily improving her walking skills.  She is able to walk from one end of the house to the other without assistance, stumbling once in a while, but for the most part, she’s pretty steady.  Now, she’s working on climbing.
• Scooting off the bed. A skill that Baby Champuru picked up mostly on her own is scooting  off the bed.  She will crawl to the edge of the bed and turn around so that she’s going legs-first, then will scoot herself off the bed.  She’s not an expert at it yet, so I watch her like a hawk when she starts heading toward the edge. Sometimes she tries to get off the bed sideways (one arm and one leg off the edge) or sometimes will even dare to go head first, so supervision is still needed.  It’s another step in her move toward independence, though. Now, she can get off the bed without help — and with her newfound mobility, she can also walk right out the door!
• Babbling. Baby is articulating her babbles differently than before. It’s starting to sound more like syllables now.  Her favorite babble-word?  “Buta.”  Buta means pig in Japanese and we sometimes sing the camp song, “going on a buta hunt” when we’re trying to occupy her during diaper changes, so it makes me wonder if she got the “buta” from that — or if it’s just coincidence. This morning, she woke me up by standing over me and saying, “buta-buta-buta-buta-buta” and smiling. I’m sure she wasn’t calling her mommy a “pig,” was she?

Baby Champuru’s favorite mode of communication: pointing

• Communicating. Baby is making progress with communication, using her little pointer finger to move mountains (or at least her parents) and doing the sign for “cracker” when she wants a snack.  It’s wonderful to have some two-sided communication these days — although people are telling me not to rush her into talking, because that usually leads to talking back.  And we know that Baby Champuru already knows how to cop an attitude when she’s not happy with something.  Here’s a video of her signing the word “cracker.”