11 Months Old

Age: 11 months

Milestones: 

• Walking with increasing proficiency. He can take 10-20 steps at a time and if he stumbles, he's getting good at getting back up without pulling himself up on anything. He can also pick things up off the ground from standing position.
• Grasping more and more language, especially in the way of pointing. He wants to know what EVERYTHING is and also points to things he wants. When you say "outside," "da-da," "bathtime," or "cat," he generally points at whatever you're talking about. In addition to pointing, when you say "bathtime," he makes splashing motions with his arms and gets excited. Hope he always stays this enthusiastic about taking a bath lol!
• Enjoying new places and experiences. He's at the point where new places don't scare him as much and he is eager to begin exploring whenever we arrive somewhere. Leif and I have had to let go of some of our germophobia and let BB crawl around public floors. He got to sit in the grass for this first time the other day and didn't mind the pokey texture - his only issue was that the uneven ground made it a little harder to walk!
• Visiting the library, playground, and petting zoo for the first time. At the zoo, I think his mind was blown seeing all of the animals from his farm books come to life. The library is probably one of his all-time favorite hangouts since he gets to roam freely, play with their activity centers, do puzzles, play with their toy kitchen and train set, and look out all of the windows.
• Still babbling a lot and working hard on perfecting "ma-ma," "ba-ba," "da-da," and "cat-cat." Whenever he finds something interesting, he says "oh!"
• Crawling beneath and around chairs/objects with ease. This has made it harder to block off areas since he can bypass so many obstacles now!
• His pincer grasp is really impressive, he can easily pick up the tiniest pieces of food... and anything else he finds on the floor.

Likes: Visiting the library, park, and petting zoo, exploring new environments, trying to run, pointing at EVERYTHING, trying all types of new foods, playing games like giving gifts (toys) to me, hide and seek with toys, rolling balls back and forth, and "delivering" toys over the baby gates.

Dislikes: I'm proud of BB for overcoming some of his fears. He's still unsure of them, but originally, he was sort of scared of his squeaky horse, horse that walks, and Peter Rabbit jack-in-the-box, but when we play with them, I smile a lot and explain that they're safe. It's so cute, he looks at me repeatedly for reassurance! He also warms up to people a little faster, but still gets overwhelmed if people are overly loud.

Memory: One of BB's favorite things to do is give me different toys to wear as hats. He'll try stacking things on my head pretty regularly and does it to himself as well from time to time. He also thinks it's funny to pull off Mommy and Daddy's glasses! He gets super excited when Leif comes home and sometimes he'll stand there and "roar" at him like a dinosaur in hopes that Leif will roar back (which he does lol). Two peas in a pod!

Mommy and Daddy: We will be moved into our new place in a few short weeks, so EXCITED! I want to make the new place as welcoming to BB as possible, so I got him a little toddler table and chairs for his new room as an early birthday gift. Here's to a new beginning!