Approaching 11 months

Anna Claire will officially be 11 months old on Dec. 22. Here's a small list of her recent discoveries and interests:

• New words: "DAAT!"--meaning, DOG! and "DAT!"--meaning KITTY CAT! It takes a well-trained ear to note the differences in inflection and delivery on the two words. There is a house in our neighborhood with a life-size, mannequin-looking Santa Claus, complete with a real sleigh and two reindeer, in their yard. Almost daily, we walk over to wave at Santa and she always shrieks, "DAAT! DAAT!" when she sees the reindeer. I figure, dog? reindeer? Close enough.
• She's beginning to develop more of a taste for table food. Part of it, is the appeal of eating what everyone else is eating, I think. Her current favorites are popcorn and croutons.
• She's gotten eerily confident in her cruising and standing. I think that spending the weekend at Paw Paw and Granny B's, and their cushiony carpet helped her to overcome her fear of falling. Now, she sort of haphazardly wobbles and bumps her way along, from our coffee table to the recliner, to the arm chair and then "thump!", down on her bum to chase a cat or two.
• Her latest obsession is putting toys in containers, such as: putting her toys in the toy basket (Mama likes this one!) and putting her rubber ducks in the Wurstfest cup, in the bathtub.
• She also enjoys our "For Mommy?" and "For Anna." game, wherein she hands us "gifts" and you say, "For (Insert name here)?" and then you hand it back to her, saying, "For Anna". It works particularly well when she's gotten ahold of something that she shouldn't have. Naturally, though, you don't give it back to her, once she gives it to you!