Morgan is 11 month's old today!!

Firstly, let me start off by saying that this morning a saw a mouse in my living room. So.. as I type, I'm bouncing my feet up and down to scare the little *&#^&^@%# away. So.. there may be more typing errors than usual. My apologies. I'm a huge wimp when it comes to varmint of almost any kind. I just don't see their point. Why can't they all go live in Australia? Thankfully, I understand - logically- that mice mean to do us no harm. So I had no problem leaving my 2 kids floudnering on the floor while I jumped up to the safety of my bed :) Anyway, I bought a mousetrap, set it up.. and hopefully its caught something before hubby gets home tomorrow night - and HE can empty it.
Anyway... today (25th of November) is Morgy's 11 month birthday. And .. I thought.. on both Kelsey & Morgan's monthly birthdays, I'd take the opporutnity to write about some of the things they've been up to this month.

Morgan is such a great kid right now. She's (generally) so incredibly happy and just pleasant to be around. She's quick to smile and absolutely adores her big sister and her daddy. Well, she adores me too, but she still expects me to be there, so I don't ever get to see her face light up the way it does for Kelsey and Marco.

At the beginning of this month, she'd just sit down where I put her, and play happily with a few toys that I would sprinkle around her for an hour or 2 at a time. However, now (at the end of the month), she barely ever just sits.. she immediately flips onto her tummy and rolls around on the ground. She's still not crawling (officially) but she surprises me every day by where she can end up without me noticing.  For the most part, she doesn't mean to go where she goes - she keeps wanting to go forward.. but can only manage to go backwards. But she has such an adaptable spirit that she's still happy with most places that she ends up. She does get a bit grumpy, however, when she backs herself into a corner, under the easel, or into the couch.. then we hear a little whine, and I go rescue her. Sweetie.
This month was also the month that she got the chicken pox. One Saturday I noticed little red dots on her and Kelsey. Within the day there were LOTS more. She was SO good about it though. Thankfully, she still takes 2 naps a day, so that helps. There was 1 night that she wasn't interested in sleeping. I think she was just TOO itchy. Poor thing. The next day she didn't want to nap either. But it was only 1 day of that, and then back to normal. Occassionally we'd see her rubbing her head, or wiggling on the ground to try to relieve the itch, but for the most part.. she just kept playing.

She is learning tonnes of new tricks. If I could think of more to teach her I'm sure she'd just lap them up. We started this month with the sign language training. As with Kelsey, I'll probably only teach her 4 or 5 useful ones, but I'm blown away by how quickly Mrogan is picking them up. After showing her the sing for milk just 2 or 3 times, she now does it on a regular basis. She's also just started doing the sign for All Done (we use that one after meals mostly, but occassionally on the playground as well). Now I'm working on teaching her the sign for "More" (more food, more toys, more kisses.. etc).
Speaking of food.. she's getting mostly people food now, and for the most part she's feeding herself. For breakfast she gets either weetbix or porridge (same as Kelsey). She's at 1 1/2 to 2 weet-bix already.  I've been trying to get her to eat sandwiches for lunch.. but she's just not that interested yet. So she usually only manages about 1/2 of one.. and that 1/2 I have to have cut up into very small little squares. How do you teach a kid that their teeth are for biting!?!For supper/dinner she's getting whatever we're having. Usually (becuase i"m hungry) I put some on her plate and let her go nuts on it - but it depends hwat we're having. Obvously, she'd need some help with something like mashed potatoes - or soup. I've completely forgotten about teaching Morgan to drink from a cup. Well, not forgotten.. but just procrastinated. And here we are, 1 month from supposedly being ready for cow's milk, and no cup insight. So yesterday, I gave her a cup with water in it. I'd tried those baby cups once or twice before - the ones iwth the no spill lids - but those are impossible for me to ddrink from - so no wonder she thought it was just a chew toy. Anyway, so I gave her a tupperare cup with sippy lid. She did great. Until I took my eyes off and she poured it all over her tray. But at least she got some water first.. we'll keep at it and hopefully she can start milk in another month!! Oh.. I can't wait to not have to buy formual anymore!!

Other tricks - She's been pretty good at waving bye-bye for a couple months already. She's really sweet. I always forget to tell her to say bye, but I always remind Kelsey, and there's Morgy waving both arms bye bye.. it looks so cute! I was on skype the toher day with my parents, and my mom was getting Kelsey to blow kisses.. so we started to teach Morgan that too.. it was So cute. So now if we tell her to blow kisses, she immediately puts her hand to her mouth, but similar to Kelsey at that age, she forgets to move it away again. Oh well.. one step at a time.She'll also nod "Yes". Not necessarily all the time, but we have a fun little thing we do here. When either girl wakes up from a nap or nighttime sleep, I ask - "Did you have a good sleep?" and they say "yes" ok, it doesn't sound like much, but these are the silly mudane things that makes up a family. Anyway, Morgy now nods Yes everytime I ask her.. its so cute. OK.. maybe I think everything she does is cute and sweet - except for trying to rip her bib off during dinner, or when she threw her plate of spaghetti on the floor last night (I knew I shouldn't have given her a plate), and throwing her head back unexpectedly while in the shower and banging it on the shower floor.. Hmm.. there are a few things she does that aren't so cute or sweet.. but she's still sweeet & cute.. and lovely.. and mine. well.. ours.
Anyway.. I should probably go get her up from her nap. I never quite know when she wakes up as she just lies there in her bed quietly. Maybe she knows that mommy needs this time.... oops, I told Kelsey we needed to go wake her up... she's gone to do that without me - ahh.. better run..