Evan is 11 Months!!

11 Months

20 lbs. 4 oz.

29"

Big boy Evan is on the move!  Well, when we encourage him to be.  He took his first steps almost 3 weeks ago and since then we've gotten him to go across the length of a room.  You can tell the more we work on it with him, the stronger he gets.  It's even more fun this time around to have Sean there cheering him on...or standing in the way so he can get some attention too.  Ahhh gotta spread the love around!

We finally made it through a healthy month (knock on wood)!  He has not had one single doctor appointment the entire month of July.  No colds, no ear infection, no stomach virus, nothing.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.  I know this is probably going to bite me in the butt in a few days, but hey, I'm proud of this milestone just as much as his walking milestone!

Despite his somewhat early need to be walking, he's your typical 11 month old: pointing at things, clapping, getting into anything and everything including cupboards and floor vents, cruising around whether it's walking or crawling, climbing on top of things, antagonizing his older brother and dog, giving snuggles every few minutes just to make sure we're still there, and making all kinds of babbles.  He's such a love bug!  He's really into wrapping his arms around your neck and giving hugs, nuzzling his head into your shoulder.  Ahhh so cute!  I'll take as many as I can get.

Life is good.  We've got him on a schedule.  Eating and napping at virtually the same time every day.  It's great to finally be able to predict and schedule things around my day.  Except that it seems like someone is constantly napping starting at 9:45am and going until 4:00pm.  We're trying to get Evan to take his morning nap in the car or stroller so we can at least get out and do things.

He's eating really well!  In fact, he's been able to eat some dairy items like yogurt and foods that have dairy cooked in them.  I'm still on the fence about eggs.  He had a small reaction on his face today after eating a scrambled egg, but time will tell.  I can't keep up with how much this boy can eat!  He's obsessed with fruit.  Especially grapes.  I can't cut them up fast enough before he's banging on his high chair tray for more.  I made some yummy yogurt and fruit popsicles that he loves in the mesh feeder for dessert!  

Other big news this month:  he's sleeping through the night.  Shhhh...I don't want to jinx this great thing we have going.  Mid-July I reached a breaking point.  With the new school year rapidly approaching I knew I didn't want to have him getting up in the middle of the night again.  So, one night, I said screw it.  Let's get started.  We decided to try crying it out...again.  But, modified.  We would go in every 20 minutes to soothe him with a pat on the back or calm words.  We wouldn't pick him up.  Night one:  3 hours with multiple times of us going in there and me eventually breaking down, picking him up, and giving him a bottle filled with water.  Night two:  45 minutes with us not going in there at all.  Night three:  sleeping through the night.  Now we've had a few nights since then when he didn't sleep through the night and it took a little over an hour to get him back to bed with going in there and soothing him.  But, we've not given him a middle of the night bottle since we started.  And I think we've found the key to success:  ensuring he has two naps during the day.

I'm ecstatic.  Scott is relieved.  This has been a long almost 11 months of interrupted nights of sleep and moments when I thought I'd lost my mind if he woke up again, but I think the worst is over. In fact, it seems most his "baby" tendencies are coming to a close.  With just phasing out the bottle and switching to whole milk ahead of us, soon we'll be referring to him as a toddler.  How is that possible?!

Stats:

• Size 3 diaper.
• 12 month clothing and finally fitting into them the way he should be.
• Down to about 21-24 ounces of milk a day.  He has a breakfast bottle, a mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and bedtime bottle.  Yay!!
• Definitely eating three meals a day like a champion with tons of new favorites like grapes, quesadilla, zucchini coins, pancakes, and soup!
• Sleeping through the night!!!!
• 2 naps at 9:45am and 2:45pm that are usually an hour and a half each.
• Bedtime between 7:30-8pm and waking at 7:30am.

Favorites:

• Playing with items in the dishwasher as I load/unload it (kid items of course).
• Taking off the floor vent/air duct vents.
• Grapes!
• Elmo - we have a rock and roll Elmo that sings with a Cookie Monster keyboard he loves.
• Playing my piano!
• Getting into Bailey's food and water bowls and splashing around.
• Wagon rides!
• Practicing walking.
• Reading books (or trying to destroy them...).
• Snuggling.

This will be another month of big change as we try to tackle the transition to a sippy cup and eventually the transition to whole milk instead of formula.  Of course, I'm dreading that one the most since I don't know if we'll need to do soy milk, but one day at a time.  Today I'm loving the fact that we have a happy, healthy adorable little baby to snuggle with every day while we're off this summer.  And today, he's still a baby.  I need to just enjoy that and embrace it because my days with babies are quickly coming to a close.

With a very special birthday party in 3 weeks and his actual birthday on labor day this year, it's the perfect way to end the summer celebrating my little guy!  I'm feeling very blessed tonight.  I love this little pookie to pieces!