Elevensies

A post about second breakfast? No not exactly...but the title was so cute that I decided to use it anyway. Mr. Baby is 11 months old today. Yes, I said eleven!

***please forgive the quality of the photos in this post, they're cell phone images***

He's getting big. Starting to communicate. Thinking about climbing. Becoming very mobile. Soon he won't even be a baby anymore. *sigh*

But it's good too--life is good, if extremely hectic! I took some time a few days ago to read back through some of the posts I wrote when we got THE CALL about him and it still made me cry. How far we have come since this time last year. This spring has me showing all the amazing sights and sounds of the world to my son, while last spring had me questioning life in general. Wow. But enough about that...here are the goods about the boy and what he's been up to this past month:

He's a master crawler now and has quickly turned that into proficient cruising too. He also does a funny little thing where he crawls with one leg up, especially on hard-surface floors. You can see it for a second or two in the (goofy) video below, which was created at the beginning of March.

He's beginning to get big, he weighs exactly 20 pounds and is 28.5 inches long...time for a new car seat! I am continuously amazed by his communication abilities and what he's saying, trying to say, or understanding.

He consistently says:

• hi,
• mama
• dada
• yum-yum
• bye
• ball
• light
  
• grrrrr (or growling)
  

and he's been actively practicing:

• baby
• dog/Ditto/Dinah
• good
• bottle

He also understands so many things even though he hasn't started saying them yet:

• Names for other important people in his life
• waving
• give me five or fist bump
• Kiss/give me a kiss
  
• where did it go/where are you going
  
• come here
• go get it
  
• glasses
• give it to me/can I have it (usually when he has my glasses)
  
• don't eat it
• gentle
  
• are you hungry/want a bite
• cup/want a drink
• cold/hot
  
• water/splash/bath
  
• yes/no (he shakes his head back and forth every time I nod mine)
• home
• window/outside
• sky
• bird
• book
• look (and he points now too, at books or in the grocery store, SO cute)
  
• brown bear-brown bear animals (he will usually point to the correct ones on his blanket or in the book)
• moo
• duck
• dance/skate
• song/sing
  
• eye
• nose
• ear
• teeth
• tongue
  
• hands
• socks/feet
• our "stinky feet" game where he touches his nose to his own feet (cute) or our feet (even cuter) and then makes the same sour face he makes for food he doesn't like.
  

He's doing great and he never ceases to amaze me with his new abilities and what he can comprehend! Every day is such a joy and it seems there are things I could add to the "What Charlie Knows" list all the time. He now has two new top teeth, which have come in at different rates but still make him look completely adorable. I think this is a big part of the reason he's started experimenting with so many new sounds/words lately...his mouth now feels different so he can try new things.

His experiences with food continue to go really well. He's pretty much eating what we eat now, although I still enjoy making him veggie and fruit purees that I freeze. He's learned how to start telling us what he thinks now with his sour face and yuck face. The really funny thing is when he makes the sour face with a food that clearly isn't at all sour. He's figured out that we think he's cute when he makes those faces so he performs for us. :) He's definitely an independent boy when it comes to food. Depending on his mood, he sometimes won't even try a new food unless he can feed it to himself. He's also beginning to master his sippy cups, which is so cute to me since they still look so big in his little hands.

Bottle time is still very much a special bonding ritual for us and that's the one time when he's perfectly content to relax and let me take over. I cherish these moments even more now because I know they are limited. With the days flying by so quickly, sometimes I just want to stop the clock and hold my baby boy a little while longer.

I can hardly believe there is only one more month before this amazing little child turns ONE.