Yarn Pirate Shop →

I’ve been starting this post for over a week now and I keep having to go back and rewrite it. H has changed so much in the last month. Every time I turn around he’s learned something new. The month of January has been a busy month for H. He even took his first steps on January 27th (see, I had to go back and add this. what else do you think he can cram in in the 4 days left this month?). It is a huge pain in the butt to photograph him now since every time he sees the camera he tries to climb my leg and wrestle it away from me. These aren’t my favorite pictures of him, but it’s going to have to do for now.

We were a few months late getting in to the pediatrician’s office for his 9 month visit, so his 11 month stats are 30 pounds and 33 1/2 inches. He’s still in the 100th percentile although his weight gain has slowed way down. He’s been hovering around 30 pounds since he was 8 months old. I can’t believe how tall he is though. He’s got the longest legs! The pediatrician assures me he’ll be well over 6 feet tall when he’s done growing.

He started pointing at things on January 1st. Once he figured out how to point it became pretty obvious that he understood a lot more than he had previously been able to communicate. He loves to point at things he knows. He points at mommy, daddy, doggies, kitty, outside (points at the door), upstairs, downstairs, teeth, baby, a few of his toys he knows the names of, and my personal favorite- he points at his diaper when it’s wet. He also loves to point at new things and learn new words. I can’t even keep track of the words he understands anymore!

He is way into babies right now. It doesn’t matter if it’s his reflection, a picture in a book, or a baby we see when we’re out and about. If there’s a baby around he points at it, starts talking to it in that mysterious baby-alien language, and if he can he gives it a hug and says “aaaaaaah”. All of a sudden H loves to hug everything. People, pets, toys, even books. He hugged one of his diapers the other day.

He’s doing just the teeniest bit of talking. If you ask him what a dog says he will respond with a very hearty “woof woof woof!”. He says “bye bye” with a lot of prompting, and if he gets really mad he starts saying “nanananana!” which clearly means “no”. He usually does that when I take a delicious piece of paper out of his mouth. He’s been saying “mama” a lot when he’s tired. I don’t think that really counts, but it is heart-meltingly sweet.

He’s really becoming an independent little guy too. He cruises and crawls a great distance away from me without as much as a glance back in my direction. When my friend comes over to babysit he is so excited to play he wants nothing to do with me. I picked him up for a hug the other day when Amber was still here and he grunted and shoved me away. Hahaha. No time for hugs! I’m thrilled that babysitting is going so well. I am grateful to have a friend like Amber who shares my parenting philosophy and is gentle and caring. H and B have fun playing together and I don’t know about B, but H is EXHAUSTED after they leave and takes a 2 1/2 hour nap. Nice!

This post could easily go on for pages and pages but I’ll try to keep it short. I have just one more story to share. It’s about TV. Now, for the record I don’t think babies should be encouraged to watch TV. We don’t let H watch cartoons or “educational” shows like Sesame Street or anything. He’s always been obsessed with the TV though. He even points to the TV if you ask him where it is. I’m sure he’d try to give it a hug if it wasn’t mounted to the wall. Sigh. Anyway, once in a while if he’s up kind of late he might watch a little TV. The other night a commercial came on for some Disney movie with live action puppies. Puppies flying a spaceship. He saw those puppies and started pointing and saying “woof woof woof” and babbling in that crazy baby-alien language. He crawled closer to the TV and bounced up and down, barking and pointing at the puppies. We replayed that commercial over and over for him. So much for not encouraging him to watch TV ;).