It's really hard to break apart what has happened in each month, since the changes are so gradual, but I know I need to write down SOMETHING or I won't be able to do his 1 year book (since yes, I'm a procrastinator, and I haven't even started. It's going to be a SUPER daunting task). So here's some bullet point changes.
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Our first Mother's Day!
1) It's hard to tell who he loves the most - Roomba or Cooper. But it's certainly, undoubtedly, neither Mom or Dad. Him and Cooper have such a special relationship and it makes me so happy. Baby J is OBSESSED with Cooper's toys and wants them so bad. Which of course is disgusting whenever he actually gets them and immediately starts eating them! He'll chase Cooper around in the litte walker car and laugh so hard when he "gets" Cooper! I think that his ONLY incentive to EVER crawl is to get Cooper and / or his toys. It still might not be enough though. He also is obsessed with Roomba though. He will literally shove your face out of the way so he can see him.
Happy Easter!
2) Speaking of Easter - Baby J went to his first Easter Egg Hunt! He didn't seem to get it. Also, the weather didn't really cooperate.
He DID get the idea of getting presents though!
Well, kind of.
He's a big boy! Clearly those pants needed to be retired!
4) He is OBSESSED with taking his socks off. He think it is HIL-AR-IOUS how much we DON'T want him to take off his socks! We try to put shoes on to hold the socks on but now he's figured out how to get his shoes off too so that just compounds the problem. Oh yeah, and did I mention he thinks velcro is amazing?! **Update** Funny - but this has kind of gone away! Not entirely, but at 11 months sometimes he'll keep his socks on for full hours at a time!
5) I've mentioned before how much Baby J loves bath time.
Bath time with friends!
I know they say babies only need a bath every 2-3 days but Baby J gets one every night because it's his absolute favorite thing. So I've been really excited for him to have swim lessons and go on this spring break trip to Great Wolf Lodge. But... of course.... as we should have predicted... he wasn't so sure about this different, bigger, busier, colder water! The first 4-ish times we even just put his feet in the little baby pool he cried. We were starting to think we'd made a HUGE mistake. But then he started getting more and more used to it and finally he would sit down and then he thought it was AMAZING! He still didn't love being fully submerged (well, to his neck - I'm not a monster!), but he got carried around up to his waist and walked in it and sat in the wave pool while the waves lapped at his legs! SO fun and cute.
**Update** Speaking of swimming - at 10.5 months we started swimming lessons! Well, lessons is quite the stretch, because the lady hasn't taught us one-single-thing. It's parent-tot, but somehow all the other kids are swimming geniuses and could do "torpedo arms" and "jump in" and all the other things she tells us to do. She is not a good teacher. Sorry lady. But he LOVES it! He will lean forward until he falls in the water when he's sitting on the edge!
6) Baby J's laugh is just the best thing ever. We love making him laugh. So then you find yourself saying ridiculous things in ridiculous voices (like "coookies"... "donuts"... "cheese please!"... "I smell baby poop" - but imagine these things said in really deep slow voices or super high pitched voices, for example). But it works! Once. Then you have to come up with something else. New material is key.
I call this one, scenic Baby J
7) Did I mention he's not even remotely close to crawling still? We totally failed that questionnaire at his 9 month appointment. We had to fill out this really long questionnaire with all these random questions that made me feel like a bad mom and like Baby J was completely failing. But some of the questions were crazy: does baby try to get at a cheerio inside a clear plastic bottle??? Ummm???? I don't know!! But he's not crawling, walking, pulling up, talking (he says lots of things but nothing FOR anything, although he has said "dada" at JMan a few times he also says "dada" about a 1,000 times a day so it's really hard to say that it really was TO him!).
He does roll EVERYWHERE. I seriously don't know why he would ever be motivated to crawl when he can get anywhere he wants by rolling. We like to joke that he'll be rolling around the kindergarten classroom to turn in his homework.
A standing machine!
**Update** He's still not crawling. He just wants to stand which he can do with assistance (and he started pulling himself up in his crib at around 11 months). We're calling his first "steps" June 5, but since he can't really get himself to a standing position on his own and he walks like a crazy drunkard who is also a crazy person and has no idea what's going on!!! I definitely wouldn't call him "walking".
8) We're FINALLY getting some teeth! We have the two lower teeth coming in, one is about halfway done and one is just poking through.
**Update! When it rains it pours? He's getting the 4 top teeth now too. He's very toothy.
9) Sleeping is such a roller coaster. Just when you think you have it figured out it changes. Just when you think YES WE'RE ON A SCHEDULE he is like "No way Jose, I do what I want" and then he has a nap strike and you have a horrible day. Sleeping at night is WAAAYYY better but we're still not 100% sleeping through. And the problem is that now when he wakes up hungry at 5am it is waaayyy harder to get him to go back to sleep than when he woke up hungry at 3am. So we've had several super early mornings that weren't that fun.
10) Baby J got his first haircut! I barely cut anything, just those really long bangs in the front, but I pretty much immediately regretted it. He went from being "laidback surfer dude" to "where's my pocket protector"!
See??
11) Breastfeeding is pretty much over. It was a slippery slope, and we went downhill quickly. It happened by accident - one day at 9.5 months we were in Portland and we *GASP* forgot the milk when I had to be gone all day. So we gave him his first taste of formula (thankfully he took it no problem - that could have been one horrible disastrous day!). After that since we'd already given him some, we decided to try giving him a bottle before bed to see if it would help him sleep better. DID IT EVER!!! Wow I wish we'd done that a long time ago. I think the problem is that my supply just kept decreasing and decreasing gradually and he just wasn't getting full at night.
At 10.5 months my supply had decreased so much that it didn't seem worth it to pump at work anymore, so I gave that up. It really shows how little I was making because I went cold turkey not pumping in a day (I had been pumping twice a day) and there was ZERO engorgement (I had only been pumping 3-5 ounces total in those two pumpings). Then I kept up with 3 other feedings for a little while, but I've just dropped the afternoon and night feed, and I'm about the drop the morning feed too. I feel a little bit like a quitter but it's also so freeing!
12) Baby J is going to be a circus performer. He's all like "I don't always hold things, but when I do, I hold them with my feet."
Seriously - ANYTHING he gets he immediately puts between his feet.
13) Baby J loves shopping and going places (he loveessss riding in the cart), he loves riding in the stroller (that's the key if he's fussy), he loves play dates and his "friends", he loves being outside, he loves swinging at the park, he loves Roomba and Cooper, and he loves food (especially cheerios, raspberries, and cheese, but he wants to eat anything that we're eating!).
And that is MORE than enough about Baby J!
