Eleven.

Dear Brooke,

Happy 11 Months, Cheeks! When someone asks us how old you are, our new response is "Almost one!" While it may not seem very old to some people, you seem so much older to us now! You can walk. Like, across the room. It's the most exhilirating thing for us to watch. Mommy & Daddy look at each other with the biggest grins on our faces each time you take a series of semi-steady steps. You now have 6 teeth, with a 7th thisclose to breaking through the surface. You eat mostly big people food, and we even ordered off of kids' menus for you a few times this month (which just screams "Big Girl" if you ask us.) You can say 5 words (Mama, Dada, hi, more, & duck) which is about 3 more than is expected of 1-year-olds. You do have your occasional meltdowns that remind us that you are, indeed, still a baby, but most of the time you act like a silly little almost-toddler. Here's what you are into (and not) these days.

Favorites
Hugs - Your hugs are the most fantastic & heart-melting things in the world. They seriously have magical powers. You give hugs on command, and boy do we ask for them a lot! You wrap those adorably chubby arms around our neck, lay your head on our shoulder, and sometimes even give us a pat on the back. One of our new favorite things to do is the family group hug. Please don't ever stop giving Mommy & Daddy these hugs, even when you're 15 and it's soooo not cool to hug your parents.
Opening Things - Cabinets, doors, boxes, puffs containers...if it's closed, you'll figure out a way to open it. You adore opening up the kitchen cabinets and pulling out what's inside. And if we leave the pantry door even slightly cracked? Forget about it, you sneak in as fast as those little legs will take you. You've even gotten smart about how to open certain things, like how you can use your teeth to open up your snack containers. Next we need to teach you how to close things (after we teach you how to put away whatever it is you got out!)
Earrings - Proof that you are already a girly-girl: you have a serious fascination with earrings. If you notice that whoever is holding you has earrings in, your hands go right to them.  You've successfully taken out one of Mommy's pearl earrings twice now. Pierced ears = jackpot. Unfortunately for you, you won't get your own until you're old enough to take care of them...in about 12 years. 
Climbing Stairs - You are a stair-climbing fool! Any chance you get, you dash to the stairs to try to get up. There's nothing exciting upstairs, so we know it's just the thrill of the climb that excites you. It's pretty convenient for us when we have our hands full and can't carry you up. Sadly for you, we've put a gate at the bottom of the staircase until you learn how to slide back down them.
Dum-Dum Suckers - You were introduced to these little gems on Halloween, and it was love at first lick. You've had maybe 3 of these since then and each one was yummy! We even used it as a babysitter for 15 mins while we helped set up for a charity auction (we were watching you the whole time, don't worry!) A little boy at a UD basketball game had one last week and you didn't take your eyes off of him the whole time, just hoping you'd get one, too.
Christmas Music - You are your mother's daughter; Christmas music is in your soul. Turning up the radio with Christmas music playing has a 90% success rate at keeping you happy. Mommy can't wait until next year when you can sing along with her!

Not-so-Favorites
Potatoes - Mashed, diced, roasted. You don't like 'em, period.
The Staircase Gate - As we said before, you love to climb stairs. But since you can climb faster than we can get to you sometimes, we've put a gate at the bottom of the staircase. This allows you more freedom to explore the lower level of our house, but it also makes you very sad. You often stand up at it and just gaze upstairs, longing for the fun that awaits up there.
Being Reprimanded - You're not an angel all the time. Sometimes, your curiosity gets the best of you and you test the limits we have set. Most of the time we just remove you from the situation and distract you. But a few times you've received a very stern "No!" from us. Like today when you bit Mommy on the arm. Mommy's very stern "No!" was met with tears, as you're smart enough to understand that Mommy wasn't happy with you.  
Facial Hair - This bears repeating, as we've already had a traumatic brief encounter with Mr. Claus himself. Apparently you only trust people whose chins you can see. We're certain you'll grow out of this, but probably not before we have Breakfast with Santa in a few weeks...

We're having a hard time believing that we are just one little month away from your 1st birthday. ONE! Wasn't it just yesterday that we watched the ball drop on NYE from the comfort of our hospital recovery room, with a large, warm bundle of brand-spanking-new baby in our arms? It's evident every single day that this is not the case, as you have changed drastically since that blessed day. You have continued blessing us in ways we never could have imagined. We love love love you, lady!

Love,

Mommy & Daddy