Dear William,
I’m a little beside myself that in 30 short days, you will be 1! Gah! The weeks go by slow, but the months go by fast. Everyday with you is an adventure sweet boy and my heart just explodes for you. I love your wet slobbery kisses and the way you nuzzle your head into my legs. You are so smiley, good-natured and adventurous. You love to laugh, be tickled, go upside down and be wherever Lexi is.
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You have quite the slew of nicknames. Most of the time mommy and daddy call you William or Bud. Lexi has created a handful of names that she calls you but the most common ones are: Bud, Buddy, Willse, Rude and Buddy-rude. We ask her where she gets these names and she has no idea–maybe it is Daddy’s creative thinking?
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William, you are such a little snuggler. So far, you are a total mama’s boy–I’m really hoping this doesn’t change over time. You love to crawl over and snuggle your head against my legs while playing on the floor or nuzzle your face into my arms. You also love to (and frequently) initiate kisses. They are open mouth and super slobbery, but the best.
Everything on the eating front continues to go well. You LOVE food–any kind. We have yet to find something you don’t like. You have a particular affinity to bananas (and really all fruit). We’ll walk pass bananas in the grocery story or you know where we keep them on the counter and you’ll pull yourself up to that spot and start grunting. Grunting is a common theme when it comes to wanting food. You’ll grunt and wave your hands up and down to let us know you want food or more food. I constantly hound you to do the more sign and even physically move your hands to do it sometimes. You did it for about a week, but have gone back to waving and grunting, which is slightly confusing as it is very similar to ‘all done’. I know you know how to do ‘more’ ‘all done’ and ‘milk’ but your preferred communication for all of these is to grunt and wave. To help with all that eating, you have 7 little chomppers. Your top right and bottom right came through this month. You absolutely LOVE to nurse. I cut out the two sessions I was doing at work (yeah to no more pumping–even if it was only 1 day a week!) so now you have bottles at daycare, but we are still nursing in the morning and before bed. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but it is kind of funny/interesting. While you nurse, you love to move around. You are constantly kicking your legs and moving your free arm around. You’ll grab my hair, play with my necklace, touch my nose or my teeth. You are just always on the go (and it has been like that since the very beginning)
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Sleeping is getting better. You take a nap around 10:30ish and 2:00ish. Naps at daycare are never more than 40 minutes but at home, your morning nap is about an hour and your afternoon nap is about an hour and a half. Most naps now, you are put down awake. You’ll often cry and fuss for about 3-5 minutes but fall asleep pretty quickly. For bedtime, I really try and make it to 8ish to nurse and then you fall asleep nursing. If I go anytime before then, you are up before 6:30 and that is just too early for your mommy. With that schedule, you’ll usually sleep until 6:30-7:00ish. Occasionally, you’ll wake in the middle of the night, but I let you just cry for a little bit and then you’ll fall back asleep.
You’re getting closer to walking. You are very stable free-standing and love to walk behind your walker. In fact, almost every evening when we get home, Lexi pushes her stroller around the house and you chase her with your walker while I get dinner ready. You need a little help in steering it or turning but have a hoot of a time with it. For several months, you’ve been able to squat down from a standing position without any assistance, but there have been a handful of times now that we’ve seen you squad down and then stand back up without holding onto anything. You haven’t figured out how to stand up without anything from a sitting position, but I think you’re pretty close to taking your first steps.
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Favorites:
- LEXI! You love to be wherever she is. About half the time she likes it, the other half she is annoyed you’re in her business and is constantly taking things from you and pushing you out of her way. (don’t worry, she spends lots of time in time out for this behavior)
- Cars, airplanes and trains–you love to push them around and mimic the noises we make
- Balls! (we also think you’re getting close to saying ‘ball’)
- crawling up the stairs–you think it is a game and a race
- Banging your hands on the screen of the fireplace–which terrifies me as we use it frequently and I’m worried that it might still be hot some time when you do this if I ever turn my back
- Unrolling toilet paper rolls
- Walking/running behind your walker
- Little people barn toy you got for Christmas, particularly the horse. It is always the first animal you pick up to play with
- Other kids. Your two main pals from daycare moved up to the next classroom and you are bored out of your mind without them. You’re moving up to the next class next week, but the past couple weeks, the teachers have been moving your around to the different classrooms to keep you entertained.
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Dislikes:
- Diaper changes
- Sitting still for anything
- No interest in books
- Whenever mommy leaves you
Other notes:
- You’re going to have wavy/curly hair sweetie. The back is already starting to curl up pretty good!
- You wear size 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers. I have no idea what size shoe yet-but it is on my list of things to get you measured.
- You have NO interest in a pacifier. You pretty much quit using it around 6 months, but I gave you one today as I had taken all of your extras home from daycare and you didn’t even try to suck on it. You chewed on the handle and then threw it down.
- You’re getting better about drinking from a sippy cup. You’ve been able to do it for many months now, but didn’t figure out that you need to tilt it back to actually get something and just this week I’ve started to notice you doing this.
Happy 11 months sweet boy! We love you!
Love,
Peanut Smiles 