Harrison is ELEVEN months old – I can hardly believe it. This has been a huge month for our sweet, chill little guy. Read on for all the milestones.
So many changes this month!
Baby on the move. Yup, Harrison is now (army) crawling. Every day, he gets faster and more curious. The dog bowls are the biggest fascination to date and I’m sure the stairs are probably next. Baby proofing of the main parts of the house has started. Seeing Harrison crawl towards me and Sean in excitement when we get home from work is awesome. Harrison has always been a pretty calm baby but in Month 10 just seemed to suddenly be SO much fussier. Once he started crawling, he was immediately back to his usual delightful self. He was just frustrated by his limited mobility!
Balancing act. Harrison LOVES to stand. Maybe more than crawl. If he’s fussy, the first thing we try is to have him stand at the coffee table to let him pull up on us. I know he wants to walk so badly and I’m hoping all the standing is helping him with balance, core strength and coordination.
Palate training continues. Harrison is eating less purees and more “regular” food. The last few weeks, we’ve made it a point to have dinner earlier most nights so we can eat with Harrison. He wants anything and everything that we are eating so getting him to eat new foods and flavors has been a breeze. He grabs up just about anything we put in front of him. He does have preferences, though, and I can tell when he’s getting sick of, say, pureed carrots at each meal for the 3rd day in a row. We’re trying to mix it up and eating with us helps us accomplish this while also establishing the specialness of mealtime in our family. <3
- Some recent new foods – Colombian tamales, Spanish rice, lentils, turkey burgers, figs, mushrooms. His current favorites are blueberries, quinoa, sweet potatoes (pureed – still adjusting to regular texture of potatoes), peas, Spanish rice and bread (same as everyone else, haha).
He’s communicating more and more.
Hi, mom. Bye, mom. Now I get waves. And it’s so, so sweet. In about 10 days, it went from being sporadic and taking him awhile to understand what we wanted him to do to him doing it almost right away once he sees us wave. I smile and giggle every time.
Shakes head no. Sometimes he seems to do it randomly but if we’re feeding him and he’s really finished, he will shake his head no. Actually helpful in that instance! We are trying to get him to nod “Yes” but when we start doing that once he’s shaking his head “no,” he seems to think it’s a game and does it more.
Affection. He puts his face to mine so his lips touch mine. Sometimes he opens his mouth to kiss me. If I kiss him when he’s on the changing table, he’ll sometimes grab my face to keep it there, then open his mouth. He pats on the shoulder/back when we are carrying him. I notice this when he’s very happy or if we’ve done something for him (picking him up after feeding him, for instance) – almost seems like a “thank you” at times.
Playfulness. He started doing this with my grandma when she was here with my mom a few weeks ago. He puts his head down a bit but looks up with just his eyes and pushes his head forward a bit to touch heads with us. The other night, he must have done it with me 7 or 8 times while I was feeding him. I was dying laughing it was so cute and so fun.
Just keep swimming. Harrison still loves the water. The bath, the pool, a bucket – if he can be in the water, he’s good. He still throws himself forward into the pool to dunk his face. It’s hysterical. Swim lessons next year, for sure.
Sean has been home a lot more this month which has been wonderful for our family. We’re loving our amazing son more and more all the time – and finding such fun in these new stages as he starts to communicate with us.
