Max: 11 Months

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful day :) I can't believe I haven't posted since December 1st. Where did this month go? I actually started a bunch of posts but never had a chance to actually finish and post them. The month of December is a crazy one for a teacher… well probably for everyone. I'm just thankful Max didn't really understand the concept of Christmas this year so I didn't have to deal with a crazy kid at home and at school. 

Max turned 11 months on the 17th, which means he is very very close to being 1 year old. I can't believe it! This time of the year last year was extremely stressful and I'm just so thankful to be where I am now rather than back then. 

Technically, Max is still a baby for a few more weeks, though he feels more and more like a kid every day. He loves to eat, there is really nothing he won't eat. He doesn't discriminate between food he can eat himself and food that is fed to him (though he may try to grab the spoon). If I am feeding him but he is paying attention to something else (his dad being silly), he will look straight at Eric but open his mouth for the food I'm about to put in. 

He loves to move and only rarely lets us hold him. Even when he is nursing, he is typically moving all over the place kicking and hitting me at the same time. He will sometimes get himself in a sitting position and try to nurse that way. He wants to be down and crawling around as much as possible. He can be playing with his toys in his play area one second and then ten seconds later be halfway up the stairs. He continues to use his unique crawl, but he is SO fast with it. When he is upstairs, he loves to crawl into the treadmill room and go up on the treadmill. I guess he understands that the treadmill is for exercise because he likes to crawl back and forth on it as quickly as he can. 

His other favorite thing upstairs is his dad's guitar. He quickly found it in the closet and will sit for a long period of time just strumming on the guitar listening to the music it makes. Not even his most ADD toys with flashing lights and music can compare to the entertainment of the guitar. 

He had a new toy this month, both at our house and my parents, the Christmas tree (photo above from my parent's house). When we first put up the tree, he was actually kind of scared of it. He would sit a few feet away and kind of whine at the tree. Once he became comfortable enough to explore it, he liked to touch some of the lower ornaments and the lights. But overall I was surprised at the number of times that he crawled right by the tree without paying too much attention to it. 

Max loves dogs. While we try not to let any dogs TOO close, he has been able to see my brother's dog and Eric's parent's dog for his whole life (all 11 months of it, ha ha). He still thinks dogs are amusing and he is not scared of them at all. He is also obsessed with his "lovey" which is a doggie blanket with tags hanging off of it (made by the Taggies brand). He sleeps with his doggie every night and at every nap. He loves to cuddle with it and suck on it while he falls asleep. 

Max's new skills include clapping and standing up. He loves to clap or hold our hands to make us clap. I may be creating a baby who believes someone will clap for him every time he does the most minor thing. Oops. He can also stand up without holding on, and I think he will be taking more than a step or two in the very near future. Right now he is a bit hesitant about it, so he usually sits down once he realizes he is actually standing. 

On the Christmas front, Max did great with the Christmas events. We had quite a few people at our house on Christmas Eve and he was quite happy about it. On Christmas Day, he took an epically long nap, allowing his mom and dad to eat Christmas dinner in peace. He was not at all interested in opening presents, but he didn't mind playing with them! Not surprisingly, he was spoiled by his family members and friends. It was refreshing and funny to see that even with all the new toys he received, he still wanted to play most with his play office/house that he borrowed from his best friend Teddy. When we tried to get him to open his presents, all he really wanted was to read his favorite book, Little Blue Truck. 

He loves to "talk" and says Dada, Daddy and Baby frequently. He has started to throw in a Mum every once in awhile just to make sure he still gets fed (kidding). He makes the P sound as well, which we take to mean Pops. It's hard to tell if he knows the meaning of these words or not. Sometimes I think he definitely does, like when he crawls up the stairs on weekend mornings and heads right for the door that he knows his dad is sleeping behind, all the while saying "Dada, Dada, Dada." But then other times he is yelling "BABY BABY" at his toy and I'm thinking he may not know who the baby really is… :) 

Likes: He still loves everything that he loved at 10 months, with some new additions. He loves opening and closing doors and cabinets. He even loves closing his own gate- he crawls up the stairs and closes the gate at the top. He likes the bathroom, opening the toilet is also fun as well as the toilet paper roll, and all the cabinets. He loves noodles, mainly the Lo Mein noodles at Chinese restaurants. He loves everything silly

Dislikes: Max still hates getting changed and being in the car when he is tired (but not sleeping). He does not want to sit in a high chair at restaurants. He is definitely a creature of habit and does not love when his routine is messed up particularly at bedtime. Max was also not a huge fan of my rental car I had for the last week and a half while my car was being fixed. I may or may not have told him to hate it...

Eating: Same eating as before: milk 4x per day (3 nursing, 1 pumped bottle while I'm at work), solid food- usually purees, oatmeal, yogurt etc 4x per day. I'm starting to finally let myself believe that we will actually make it to 1 year with nursing (+pumping). That is something I NEVER thought I would say. 

Sleeping: No real change since 10 months. 

Talking: Dada, Daddy, Baby, Mum, P-p-p,  

Thanks for reading about Max. I'll be back in a few weeks with his ONE YEAR post. What?!

I'll try to be back in the meantime with a few other posts. I want to talk about decluttering and my favorite books of 2014. Hopefully!