Letter to our 11.5 month old.

This week on 11/22/2012, you turned 50 weeks or 11.49 months old.

Over the weekend, since we were traveling last Monday, we attended a makeup music class on Saturday morning.  Because of my work schedule, I usually show up for the last 20 minutes of these classes and this was the first time I was able to attend one of your classes from the start, and I was left in awe of your teacher.  She is incredibly talented, energetic and actually makes the class fun for the adults, too.  Plus, I was envious of the facility where this class was held, in the recreation center for a community whose outdoor pool is still heated… in November!  If you know me, you know I’m all about outdoor swimming pools!

That afternoon we headed to Downtown Disney to meet up with some longtime family friends for dinner, since they are unable to make your birthday party next month.  It was a true joy to see them and catch up, and I was so glad that we were able to make it happen.  Afterward, you and I went into Disneyland to have our picture taken in front of the big Christmas tree… this is something I hope to make an annual tradition.

Grocery shopping with you has become quite the entertainment.  Ever since you made the connection in your brain and you now know that we are buying food, you stare longingly at anything we put in the cart and if you get your hands on it, in your mouth it goes.  I thought the banana last month was funny (embarrassingly so), but then the next week you tongued an ice cream box, and this week you wanted to bite into a raw onion.  I swear, people are gonna think we starve you!

You are weighing in at 28 pounds.  Clothing sizing is the same, 18 month and some 24 months. New words you’re saying this week:  “Wow!”  Your Grandma D. says that came about after library story time, one of the books emphasized that word.  You demonstrate that you have an understanding of a lot of things we say and you are quite the little repeater.  Sometimes you’ll be protesting your diaper change and I’ll interrupt your complaining with a great big “Waaawaawah!”  You’ll look at me and repeat my mournful sound.  The other thing I’ll say is “Stop!”  You respond by looking at me and saying, “Pop?”  ha

New developments:  Climbing!  There’s a toy that has been in your play yard all this time and someone thought it a good idea to bring it into the living room.  Toy rotation, I think they call this.  The problem is that it’s the perfect height of a step and you discovered this and now use it as a step ladder and push it around to various things you want to reach.  When I discovered you doing that, a couple days went by and I put it back in your play yard.  It’s perfect for a newly sitting baby, but not so much for a baby who’s working on walking.  I’m thinking that toy is going to be one of the first ones rotated out after your birthday.

On 11/21, your sixth tooth emerged through your gums, your bottom right lateral incisor.  Clapping!  You clapped your hands for the first time after your music class last Saturday!  Blowing!  You blow out with your mouth… you’ve been “hissing” for awhile now, but the blowing is new, just in time for your birthday cake?  You intentionally blew out your nose and then inhaled, copying me one morning, now we just need to expand that skill to blow into a tissue.  A few weeks ago, during bath time, I started sliding your bath toys off the duck tub’s head into your bath with you, and now every time you get in the tub you look expectantly at the toys sitting on the ledge of the bath tub.  Your Grandma D. says that when she heats your milk during the day, you mimic her swirling the milk by moving your arm in a swirling motion.  Ripping things up!  You love to rip things up: magazines, newspapers, aluminum foil and paper coasters.  You figured out how to turn on your father’s projector with the remote control.  You also figured out how to pull your father’s laptop off the desk and onto the floor, that didn’t end well for the computer.

New Food(s) this week:  Beets.  You recognize the word “banana” and have for awhile, what I didn’t realize and your father did, is that you will come crawling from across the room if asked if you want one.  Unfortunately, banana sounds much like your word for nursing and so you make the milk sign for it while saying “nananannaaa.”

Things I want to remember about you this week?  How you reach for me in the mornings and make the milk sign desperately while saying “NAAAANAAAAA”.  How when you’re nursing and waiting for a letdown, you impatiently sign “milk” with your hand, and when the letdown happens, you stop signing and start moaning. How when you’re done nursing one breast, you’ll pull off and wave at it and say “Bye, bye!”   How one middle of the night nursing you pulled off in the middle of nursing and, concerned, I waited to see what you would do… you blew, and then latched back on and continued nursing.  How when I wanted to bake the gingerbread dough this week that I made last year when you were a newborn, I pulled out my cookie cutters and let you play with one of the boxes while I used the other one.  You examined each cookie cutter intently, one at a time, and then decided it would be a good idea to upend the thing and spread them across the kitchen floor.

How when you sleep at night, no matter how I lay you in your crib you always end up on your tummy and work your way to the end nearest the sound machine.  How when you’re concentrating on something, you have your mouth wide open.

In the mornings, our routine is that once you wake I nurse you and then give you a couple minutes on the floor in your room with your Book Nook while I prep your diaper by double stuffing it.  I pick you up and we look in your closet to determine what you will wear, you grab hold of the Mickey Mouse Medellion.  Then I change you and dress you and we exit your room and go find your father.  One morning this week I told you, as usual, “Let’s go find daddy!” Except your father was still in the shower and instead of going in there, I was planning to hold you a bit longer.  You started to cry and wiggle, so I let you down thinking you wanted to play.  The second you got to the floor, you hustled yourself into the master bedroom, around the corner and pushed open the bathroom door, and started banging on the shower door.  You were going to say good morning to your daddy, regardless of where he was!

Every day that goes by, you become more of your own person, with your own personality and your own preferences.  Parents who’ve gone down this road before me used to say stuff like, “It’s so fun to watch them discover things.”  I understood what they were saying, of course, but to watch it in motion, watching it happen before my very own eyes and know that the things I say and the things I do are a crucial part of your development, it’s an awesome and somewhat scary thing.  Much like when you were a newborn and I found you watching my every move in the mirror when I changed your diaper and I started smiling nonstop, now I find myself evaluating the things I say and the facial expressions I use around you.  You are an awesome kid and I don’t want anything I do to change that.

Love you forever,
Momma