Let the Countdown begin! Will is 11 months old!!

Dear William,

It's officially time to start the countdown to ONE! Happy 11 months, Little Man! So crazy that in just one (single) month, you are going to go from celebrating monthly birthdays to a full year. You are no longer going to be an infant, but rather a toddler. Holy cow! This can't be happening.

You are so full of happiness. You are often found smiling or laughing. That is such a strange turn of events from just a few months ago when you were dealing with serious separation anxiety and were not happy 75% of your awake hours unless I was holding you. You have started to become more and more independent (but you still love your Mommy snuggles). You can play by yourself or with your sister for long periods of time with minimal interaction necessary from me. That doesn't mean we don't interact, you just don't require it like you did just a couple of months ago. You are still in the "stranger danger" period. If people look at your wrong, you will often burst into tears. I think you just know innately what people are good and what people are not as good. You love to laugh though and giggle at almost anything, especially if it's your sister doing the funny thing. You love to be tickled and laugh hysterically. Usually, you get so excited that you start laughing even if we aren't actually touching you and instead just pretending to tickle you. Silly boy. You personality is really starting to shine through. I am loving it. You are a fun-loving, easy going kid. I don't know if it is a second child thing or just your personality, but you are seriously the most easy going kid I have met. You just roll with the punches. Thank goodness too because we often drag you around doing things as a family and you don't mind in the least. Despite your lack of nighttime sleeping, you can nap just about everwhere. That is something your sister NEVER did and still doesn't do. You nap in strollers, in your carrier when I am wearing you, in the car... you get the idea. Now, if we could just get you to sleep through the night.

You are still our big boy. We still get comments from people that are amazed you aren't yet a year old. You weigh about 22 pounds and are around 30 inches long. Our actual measurement was closer to 30.5 inches, but since we find that we tend to overestimate more often than not, we are just going to say 30 until we get a firm measurement at your 1 year appointment next month. You are firmly planted in mostly 18-24 month clothing. However, we are now experiencing the same issue with you that we had/have with Kenzie. You need 18 month clothing (at least) for length, but you have thinned to the point that it doesn't fit in your waist. As we move towards more long pants, this is going to present a problem. Right now, we can get away with some 12 month shorts, but pants are going to be an issue. You are also now in size 4 diapers. We probably should have made this switch about a month ago, but we finally have now and it is much better. You now have 6 teeth. That matching tooth on the bottom finally showed up about two weeks ago. It was a rough night for you when it cut through, but you were all smiles by the next day. I'm thinking we will see one of your top teeth in a few days but I can never be sure until I see it cut through.

You still LOVE to eat and the amount you eat has gotten even bigger. For breakfast, you usually have either oatmeal mixed with applesauce (and it is real rolled oats oatmeal) or yogurt. Periodically, you have both. Along with a handful of cheerios. Also, if you only have yogurt, you usually also have applesauce or something with it to get fruit in you. At lunch you are eating a variety of foods. Usually, some sort of veggie (like peas and carrots), fruit (such as a plum or nectarine), crackers, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches (Gasp! We didn't wait until a year... but you love them), grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese quesadillas, pasta, or leftovers from dinner the night before. Dinner you eat with us. We do not do any veggie/grain/meat purees or anything. We just cut down what we are having and you eat it. Sometimes you feed yourself and sometimes you want me to feed you, but you always eat it. You also always have fruit with dinner. Sometimes that is a puree, but not always. You also have periodic snacks like cheerios, an applesauce pouch, puffs if we happen to have any, crackers, etc during the day. You will usually have 1-2 snacks. You even ate your very first kids meal of your own the other day at a restaurant. It was the first time for you and you ate all of it. You beat your sister to that milestone by almost 6 months, I think. Usually, we still elect to give you part of your sister's meal or our own along with fruit that we always carry, but you can certainly polish off your own food most of the time. I mentioned last month about how you yell at me when you are ready to eat like I just can't get it ready fast enough. Well, you don't do it as much at home anymore... but you do it all the time when we are out. When you see food coming towards our table, you get so very excited. As a matter of a fact, when Nana and Papa were here last week we went to eat and the table behind us had their food delivered before us. You thought it was our food and yelled at the server the entire way out... then looked confused when it wasn't delivered to you. Then you proceeded to squawk your displeasure about the fact that someone else got food before you. Actually, if those people would have let you, I think you would have gone to sit with them so you could eat sooner.  You are also now nursing 4 times during the day. We dropped the 5th nursing session. We are working on night weaning you so you haven't had nighttime nursing sessions much over the past few days and other than lengthening some of your daytime ones, I am not noticing a huge difference overall.

You take two naps a day now. We had to amend our schedule slightly with Kenzie being in school 2 days a week. You typically wake between 7:15 and 7:30 (thank you for pushing that back) and you nap around 10am and 2pm. If Kenzie isn't home, your morning nap is usually around 1.5 hours. If she is home, it is usually around 45 minutes. Your afternoon nap continues to sit around 45 minutes most days. Sometimes you surprise me and take a slightly longer nap. You also still do not wake up happy most days unless you take a longer nap or sleep for a longer stretch right before waking in the morning. Like I said earlier, we are working on night weaning you. You still wake a few times a night and fuss for a few minutes, but you don't need me to come in there to soothe you and can usually put yourself back to sleep. Hopefully that means you will be sleeping solidly through the night soon. Your bed time is officially around 7:30 now. We try to keep up with our nighttime routine, but you don't always want to be a part of it. The plus is that you do not need to nurse to sleep even if you don't care for the book or songs that night. One of my current favorite things is when we get you out of the bathtub, you pull up on the side and throw toys in at your sister, laughing then entire time. Then, after we diaper you on the floor (if we do it there... or even sometimes when we change you on the floor and you are able to roll out of our reach and make a break for it), you crawl really fast through the house laughing as we chase you down. I keep jokingly referring to you as a "troublemaker", but you seriously love to play games and you think running away from us when we are trying to dress you is one of the best games out there.

This month you have experienced a language explosion! It was awesome to watch. You have added "done" and periodically "up" to your word repertoire. You have also started periodically stringing together two words into phrases. You told Daddy, "Hey Dada" a couple weeks ago and I have heard you say "I done" on more than one occasion. I even managed to catch that one on video. You have also started to periodically say "no" to me. You can shake your head no, but saying it is definitely new. You usually do it while laughing and it isn't at a time that "no" is a seriously inappropriate response but you like to play coy and tell me no sometimes. You also periodically say "yeah". I don't know that you have meaning to that one yet, but it seems to show up at the right times so, maybe. Much to your Nana's delight, you also started saying "Nana" this month. At first, we thought it was just the sounds conveniently put together, but we spent a lot of time with her and Papa last week at their timeshare and it wasn't long before you were obviously calling her Nana. You didn't call anyone else Nana. As a matter of a fact, if you wanted her attention, you had no problem screaming "Nana!" at her. She was quite excited. Your receptive language is still spot on. Like I mentioned, you are now doing a lot of head shaking for "no" when we ask you questions. You will also do it if we tell you to say "no" or "yes". Your head shake is not always an appropriate response, but your use of it (and your verbalizations) at the appropriate times tell me that you are understanding reciprocal conversation.

You have also had a physical development bump in the last month. You have been pulling up for months and have been able to cruise for a while, but you have become really fluid with that skill. You also let go more and more when you are standing and holding onto something. It never lasts long before you either sit down or grab whatever you were using to balance yourself, but I can see your mind working and thinking about it. You have finally started using your walking toy for what it is designed for and you love to push it around the house. Until you get distracted by another toy, that is.

You have even started to turn around 180 degree from one furniture item to another. Sometimes you let go to make the turn, and sometimes you don't, but it is obviously a new progression of that skill. You also love to walk with our help and this month you have started to walk while holding only 1 of our hands. You are still quite wobbly, but before now you would sit down immediately if we let go of one of your hands, now you will take a few steps before trying to grab our other hand again. You are definitely wanting to walk. It's just a matter of your little mind and body figuring it out together. Unlike Kenzie, you have the drive early. We will see if your body plays along or if you are a late average walker, like your sister was. Your lack of walking though doesn't slow you down. You are fast and furious when you crawl and into EVERYTHING. You have started crawling and carrying toys in your mouth. I don't know why, but that always makes me laugh. I remember Kenzie doing it too and it just cracks me up. You especially love to put the straw to your cup in your mouth and carry your cup around like that. Apparently you need it close by in case you require a water break. Your new thing is that when we tell you something is "off limits", you turn around, look at us (usually with a sly smile), wave bye bye and then do whatever it was we were telling you not to do. You are easily redirected, but it's like you are already pushing your boundaries. Last month you would often redirect yourself when we told you not to do something, but this month you are all the way into pushing it. Speaking of waving bye bye, that skill has gotten so much better this month. It is definitely your new favorite thing to do. You wave to everyone and everything. You wave hi and bye. You have also started the double wave. I love that one. You become quite excited with yourself when you wave to someone and they wave back or acknowledge you. Sometimes you are saying "hi" or "bye" with your wave. Seriously... Cute! Your clapping has taken a backseat while you work on waving, but you still do it. You have started doing it more and more in the last two days and I'm sure it will get much better in the coming months, too. I have noticed that it is a big clap. You throw your little hands out as far as they can go and then clap really big. It is adorable.

This month we got your hair cut for the first time!! I was a bit nervous and sad, but you did amazing!!! And now you look like such a little boy rather than a baby. Being that we are a Disney family, we had it done there and while you won't remember it, I'm so glad we did it and took the pictures to document the occasion. You just look so grown up now. I sort of miss the baby look, but I love the new little boy look. We were so amazed with how well you did. You never cried, you didn't have an issue with a new person touching your head and you just held mine or Daddy's hand through most of it and played with the stickers and toy you were handed when we walked in. And a plus... you got your first set of Mickey ears to mark the occasion.

I can't believe I am now able to tell people that you are 11 months old. You will be 1-year-old in ONE MONTH!!!  I'm not sure whether to be excited or sad about that. I think both are okay. I am going to be both. You are developing into such a fun-loving little man and that makes your Daddy and me both so happy. We are so excited to see how you continue to grow. Until next month my soon-to-be toddler...

XOXO,
Mommy

And just because this is you in a nutshell right now... Daredevil/Troublemaker Extraordinaire