eleven months old

Hello friends! I haven’t forgotten that I have a blog. 🙂 I just don’t have all that much to say these days … and even when I have the opportunity to write, I’m too busy watching Downton Abbey (we’re halfway through season 2 and I can’t handle it) to want to talk about anything else.

But anyway. A few days ago, this happened:

LOOK at this baby. Compare him to how he looked just four months ago:

Isn’t it a huge difference? I can’t imagine how different he is going to look again in another four months.

Will is extremely busy these days. He never stops moving and has developed a deep love for cars and trucks. It’s so cute to watch him push his cars around on the floor and follow where they go! As you can see he is holding one in his picture above. We are on the lookout for a fire truck to get him for his birthday (!!) — there is a nice fire truck at auntie Leah’s house that he plays with whenever he visits, so I want to get him one to play with at home, too.

Watching him engage more with specific toys is probably the biggest difference we observed this month. He has also really been enjoying his new activity table (new to him, anyway), which is good because it helps him to learn how to stand more comfortably. He is not really big on pulling to stand and has only done it spontaneously twice (once in pursuit of Steve’s oatmeal), so I will often sit behind him when he plays with his table and help him to pull himself on up it. I also sit on the couch or chair and hold one of his toys (my phone or one of his cars) to try and encourage him to come and get it, which has mixed success and often just results in a frustrated baby. Oh well. I assume he will walk eventually.

He is still a very speedy crawler — and he still crawls on his belly! I have been encouraging him to get up on his hands and knees so that he’ll figure out how to crawl differently, because when we play outside this spring I imagine it will be easier for him to be on his hands and knees. Maybe not. I wonder whether he will crawl on his hands and knees before he walks or if he’ll be army crawling until he walks? At any rate, he seems pretty satisfied with his preferred method of transportation.

Another change this month? We finally gave up the infant bathtub and graduated to this:

Thanks, Pinterest, for the idea. Now he stays happy and contained, and his toys don’t float away! What a wonderful new use for the laundry basket I took to college with me back in 1998. Who knew it would act as a baby tub fifteen years later?

Another change this month is that this baby has fallen head over heels in love with food. He eats pretty much whatever we’re eating, and I can’t think of a single food he doesn’t like! He feeds himself really well. While he can’t feed himself from a spoon yet (I have no idea when babies learn to do that, but it’s evidently not yet) he does like to play with it after I feed him yogurt, cottage cheese or applesauce. Some new favorite foods this month have included pizza, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, lentils, quinoa and banana bread. I could sit and watch him eat all day. He has also done pretty well figuring out how to drink from a sippie cup.

Another very exciting development is that I dropped Will’s “dream feed”. For the last several months I have been feeding him before I go to bed in order to help him sleep through the night. Last month, he dropped his 4 a.m. feed, which was amazing, so I was very apprehensive that he would start waking up early again once I dropped the dream feed. To my relief, though, he still sleeps all night!

Some more eleven-month facts and stats:

• Still no teeth. I love it. His big gummy smile is so cute.
• He sleeps about 13 hours at night (around 7:30 until 8 or so) and continues to nap well, though more and more frequently his “morning” nap is up to two hours and his late afternoon nap is very short or nonexistent. I have a feeling he will transition to one nap on the early side compared to other babies, but I kind of hope not. I need that late afternoon nap time in order to start dinner!
• As I mentioned above, I have dropped two feedings so far. He does not seem to have noticed and his interest in nursing is definitely waning. I mean, there is so much delicious food to eat!
• He wears 12 month size clothes but I’m starting to notice some of the onesies and sleepers getting a little short. What next? I’m not sure we’re ready for 18 month size. I don’t think there’s anything between 12 month size and 18 month, though.
• It is really, really hard to change his diapers. He is a fast-moving baby.

He’s also the best baby ever. I can’t believe he’s about to be one year old.