Adventures at 1628: Avery {11 months}

{11 months}

It feels really bitter-sweet to write this post... in one month my little baby will be turning one year old. We are now busy planning first birthday activities, searching for a day home and planning for my return to work.

Growth:

Avery is continuing to thin out as he gets more active. I am guessing he will be plateaued at 18 lbs for a while as he burns off all his baby fat. He is starting to wear some 18 month clothing in order to fit over his big head and his cloth diapers.

Eating:

Avery continues to have a monstrous appetite and love for food. He takes his meals very seriously and will sit for 30 minutes or more eating. The only time he sits still all day! We have also started giving him an afternoon snack most days because it seemed like he was getting 'hangry' before we could get dinner on the table for 5 PM.

We finally found a food he does not seem to like - cranberries! Previously it was bananas but now they are one of his favourites.

One of his current obsessions is eating meat off the bone. We will clean the majority of the meat off a pork rib or chicken drumstick and let him gnaw the rest off. He loves it. Once he gets the bones in his hands he will not put them down and will often be holding three at a time to make sure we do not take them away.

I am continually impressed with how much he enjoys spices. He loves salsa in his scrambled eggs and curry in his rice.

Favourite Foods: peanut butter, bananas, fish, eggs, meat on the bone, apple sauce, smoothies

Firsts:

At 10.5 months Avery took his first steps! Of course he chose to do it in front of Dave the one afternoon I decided to go grocery shopping by myself. Unfortunately a couple days after he started taking steps, he got a bad cold/flu and the congestion must have thrown off his balance because he has been really hesitant to do much walking ever since.

This month Avery also had his first visit to Santa, saw his first reindeers and the CPR Holiday train.

Milestones:

Avery still has no definitive words despite being quite vocal. He can communicate quite well with pointing, his made-up sign language and his version of the African Bushman click language. He talks to Dave almost exclusively in tongue clicks.

As Dave commented the other day "now we just need him to start speaking English".

His fine motor skills are becoming quite developed. He loves to crawl along the carpet picking up every little piece of lint and handing it to one of us (just to rub it in that once again I did not make time to vacuum the house!)

Sleeping:

After another rough patch due to a cold/flu, Avery is consistently sleeping right through the night. He still goes to bed around 6:30 despite our best efforts to stretch it later. Typically he will sleep straight to 7 AM or wake up around 6 AM, feed and return to sleep until well after 8 AM.

He has been taking longer morning naps lately - one was over three hours! But his morning naps are getting shorter and less consistent. Some days it is impossible to convince him to take an afternoon nap no matter how tired he is.

I am really interested/concerned to see how things will change when I return to work and he starts going to a day home...

Personality:

Avery is an energetic, out-going baby. He loves to people-watch and to be the centre of attention. Wherever we go he attracts people to him and flirts with anyone who will pay him attention (even some who don't).

He continues to love climbing, jumping and acrobatics of any form. Dave is already working on getting him to do a forward roll.

We had been noticing that he did not seem to enjoy rides in his wooden sled, until one day I began counting to three and using the handle to whip the sled ahead of me... we quickly realized what is wrong with the sled - it does not go fast enough!

He is amazingly creative. He makes up his own games with the most ordinary objects. The other day he spent almost an hour playing with a bottle lid he stole from the kitchen cabinet. He loves anything that makes noise - rattles, bells - and finds 'drums' wherever he goes. He loves music and dancing - especially Christmas carols!

He loves to be tickled and bursts out in the most infectious giggles.

He has started to play shy on occasion, especially to strange men... he was definitely not going to sit on Santa's lap!