Wilson Ramblings: 11 months old!!!!!

Gettin' so big!

Sweet sleepy head

Hello there!

In a month, Nathan will be a year old! WOW! He's doing so many things these days!

New Foods: Papaya, hot dogs, 2% milk, mozerella sticks, lunch meat (nitrate free of course), couscous, several kinds of baby food crackers, yougurt melts, french toast (I soak a piece of bread in egg yolk, 2% milk, and cinnamon and cook it up), meatloaf, frozen yogurt, kiwi, chicken pot pie, cauliflower, sparkling water, fish sticks, and I'm sure many many many more! His favorites are cheerios, yogurt melts, goldfish, blueberries, bananas, grilled cheese, french toast, and milk. He can drink from regular hard spout sippy cups now and this is a big deal for us because he's not been able to figure out how to suck the liquid out of them until recently! Yeah Nathan. He's learning to drink from a straw too. He eats much more table food, but still likes baby food. He will readily try anything, but has also learned the art of gently spitting out food he doesn't like. It's actually funny to watch!

Growth: Nathan is still right around 22 pounds but is probably closer to 29 inches tall. He's really getting much leaner. He's very muscular for a baby and is SO strong. Even Chad comments on how strong he is. He's wearing 12 and 18 month shirts, mostly 12 month pants (some 18 month), and a size 5 extra wide shoe. He's in size 4 diapers in the day time and size 5 at night.

Signs he uses: ball, dog, book, light, help, more, and eat. Sometimes he will sign drink, all done, and down. He receptively knows the signs for car, no, cereal, baby, milk; hopefully he'll sign them soon.

New Sounds and Words: ma ma, daddy (says da de), Bailey (says Bah and points to her), balloon (ba-oon), and all done (ah du). He continues to say ball and more, and sometimes says up. He makes these sounds: pa, ga, go, wa, dat, and a few more! He can also click his tongue!

Language and Communication: Nathan points at everything and loves to look at picture books. He can identify many objects now and points to them or finds them when asked... lion, monkey, car, mama, daddy, sometimes Zachary and Colton, and milk. He knows what a lion says and will roar when he sees one! He also gets excited when I ask him what a monkey says because he loves for me to act like a monkey. Hopefully he'll act like a monkey one day. He loves to watch baby einstein's signing video and he signs the words that he knows. It's great because he also knows what the kids are signing!

Games/Play: Nathan loves for you to say, "I'm gonna get you" and chase him. He likes to climb up on an air mattress in the playroom and have you bounce him. He loves fleece and veloba blankets and loves to snuggle in piles of them. He really likes to watch people in stores, restaurants, and when we're in the neighborhood. He loves to be tickled and especially likes it when you bite his bare feet. He thinks it's so funny when we hold things in our mouths like his paci. He'll take it out, put it in his mouth, and then turn it around and put it in our mouths. He giggles when we carry things in our mouths too. He's learned to "put in" and "take out" and we're so excited that he's gotten the concept. He puts his balls in the giraffe toy and the go round and round down the track and he loves to take small things out of containers and then put them back in. One of his all time favorites these days are books and he'll spend quite some time sitting down and looking at his books. He also really enjoys being sung to. When he hears music he sings along. Chad and I sing to him a lot when he's getting ready to go to sleep and he gets very snuggly! Nathan is also fascintated with the animals in his room. He loves to "pet" and kiss the big giraffe, and every day at least 3 or 4 times he wants to touch all the animals on the painting and the quilt on the wall. His favorites are the lion and the giraffe. Nathan also really enjoys being outside. He will tap on the door and point and say "ah ah" wanting to go out. Once outside, he crawls around, crawls over Bailey, touches and pulls the grass, plays in the pine needles and explores. He loves the fresh air and enjoys going for walks too, either being held, in a stroller, in the bjorn, or in the backpack.

Movement: Nathan crawls everywhere, over, under, around, through... and is finally crawling on both knees instead of a knee and a foot. He loves to go up the stairs and we're learning how to go back down. He and his friend Zachary go up and down and up and down (with mommies right behind), so he's getting lots of practice. He's cruising from object to object and is starting to stand more without holding on to anything. He will now walk from our back door to the garage door (about 15 feet) while you hold just one hand. Today, he started to take a step without holding on, but chickened out and sat down with one foot up in the air. He can unvelcro his shoes and likes to help velcro them closed as well. Yesterday, he also pulled off one of his socks on purpose for the first time. He can take off his shoes too.

Temperament: I believe Nathan will be a high energy little toddler... some might call him "spirited". He's stubborn as a mule and persistent as all get out! If he really wants to touch it, it doesn't matter how many times you tell him no, if you don't remove it, he keeps touching it. He is testing us a bit by standing or kneeling near things that are no no's and looking our way. He usually will respond to "no touch" unless it's the water cooler, faucet in the bath tub, or the dog's water bowl. Nathan LOVES people and enjoys being around them, interacting with them, and watching them. He's still pretty willing to go to most strangers unless he's tired or overwhelmed. In fact, in the toy store this week, he reached out to the sales clerk and about fell into her arms. Then he pointed to a giant monkey and wanted her to take him there. :) He is PERFECT in the car and as of now, we see no need to turn him front facing when he turns 1. He's comfortable rear facing and knows no different, and since it's safer to be backwards, he'll stay that way until he's too tall! He loves to ride in shopping carts and again is an absolute JOY in stores. He is also a DELIGHT in restaurants. He has learned to be loud and loves to hear his voice, but beyond that, he's content to sit in his high chair, eat, watch people, play with a toy, or look at a book. He sat in a high chair for an hour and a half one night this week and was great! He is also very loving. Every morning he gives Chad a kiss on the cheek when he sees him first thing, and before work, and after work, and before bed. When asked to give kisses, he opens his mouth really wide and makes the cutest little noise. He plants a kiss on the cheek and he means it! I'll try to get it on video. He's also starting to "ask" for hugs by burrying his face in my neck or snuggling up against me. Nathan is so much fun to be around!

Teeth: Nathan has 4 teeth now, the two bottom ones and the top two eye teeth!

Sleep: Same sleep schedule... 730p to 730a, nap 10-12 and 3-5. Sometimes he doesn't nap the whole time during one nap but that's pretty typical for his age. He puts himself to sleep still and will often play in his crib before going to sleep and when waking up.

Nathan no longer takes a bottle and hasn't for about 3.5 weeks. He never looked back and didn't really even notice. He gets a sippy cup of milk/formula first thing in the morning and before his 3pm nap and that's it. The rest of the day he drinks water or watered down juice.

Nathan's friend Zachary is the first little guy I've seen Nathan acutally play WITH. He and Colton play side by side often and will often do the same things, but they don't often interact with one another while playing (although Colton has always been one to give Nathan hugs and kisses). Nathan and Zachary (2 weeks apart) are actually interacting together. One of them will crawl off and look at the other. When the other starts to crawl, the first one smiles and crawls faster. They love to go up and down the steps side by side. One day this week, Kristin and I had lunch and left the boys in a baby safe room in their house (we could see them, but they couldn't see us) and they played together for about 30 minutes. They stood at the same ball tower and dropped balls into the chutes, they climbed on the same air mattress and tumbled a bit together. At one point it looked like they were wrestling. IT IS AMAZING TO WATCH and makes both of us mommies so proud!!!

How about some pictures!!!

7 months or 11 months? You tell me! It's hard to believe that he's been wearing the same clothes for so long! We're actually starting to see some wear in them. We've flown through sizes and many times he didn't even get to wear something once. Now, we're seeing the same things again and again and again! It's a good thing he likes them!

Nathan and his beloved ba-oon

My friend, Allison, and her husband, Michael, came to visit us last weekend and Nathan and Bailey fell in love with both of them! We really enjoyed their visit!

Props to Baby Gap for making the greatest pair of baby PJ's! Nathan started wearing these at 4 months and can still wear them now! It's a little too chilly at night these days, but he wore them today just for the fun of it!

April 2008

October 2008

Nathan loves to turn on the water at our tub! My mom has a picture of me standing naked beside my bath tub when I was about this age, so I found it only fitting to take a few of Nathan. Baby butts are the cutest!

Playing with Zachary - I didn't get any really cute pictures because I was too consumed with watching them play! I'll try to get better pictures next time!

Playing with Colton. They both were very into pushing the tractor... at the same time, but not at the same speeds. Too funny!

Playdate with Hunter - they had a blast playing on the bouncy air mattress. Nathan would lay still and wait for Hunter to come running and bounce him up into the air!

Aren't they cute laying side by side! It looks like they're talking but really they were snuggling into the pillows as they were both pooped!

Nathan's pooping face. We see this 99% of the time when he's just finished a meal!

Pictures in the chair (to subdue him long enough to get him to sit, i had to give him a grahm cracker... too bad he got it all over the chair - thank you Lord for microfiber!)