11 Months Old

Our next monthday celebration will be counted in years. Twenty four Thirteen days to go (I started this post a long time ago, my life is in super slow mode). I can't even believe it.

Eleven months brought about tooth numbers 6, 7 and 8 for Ryan and tooth number 7 for Reese.

{ a little risky business, baby style }

Ryan is now up to three haircuts. Little guy's hair grows like a Chia Pet - fast and straight out! Miss Reese fell victim to Mommy's scissors as well. I was attempting a bang trim to keep her wispy hairs out of her eyes. She turned at the same time as I snipped, and instead of taking off the tips, we took off a few inches. All diagonally, of course. A few deep breaths later I was able to (mostly) straighten out her horrible hair cut. Thankfully it has grown back well and either it's hardly noticeable or I've gotten used to her Dorothy Hammil look.

{ sporting her terrible bangs }

My little puffle has really come into her own. She is the giggliest, squirmiest little girl you've ever met. Junior Miss is two feet of pure trouble. If I could define 11 months for that child in one word it would be curious.

She is into everything. Opening up drawers and pulling out everything inside, examining all of the contents piece by piece. Climbing on top of toys to see what's just out of sight. Standing on the very tip of her biggest toe to reach something on top of tables (she'll be an excellent ballet dancer some day!). Stripping toilet paper off of rolls. Pulling food out of the fridge. You name it, she's in to it.

Ryan is my little engineer. He is focused on and fascinated by how things work. Much of his day is spent stacking objects, fitting toys in their rightful place or, his very favorite activity, dropping something to observe how it will react and then crawling after it in order to drop it again. He's very into noises and sounds. How something sounds when it is tapped on the floor, the wall, another toy. How something sounds when it drops. What happens when two things clank together.



While Reese tends to focus on whatever it is she's doing, Ryan is observant of the whole space that he is in, from the floor to the ceiling. He's processing what things are and how they function.

I've been very surprised to see them catch on to how objects interact, open, close, function without any prodding or teaching from us.

Reese is our little bookworm. She's constantly pulling books off the shelf and pouring through them. She'll point to things inside the books, even though I'm quite sure she doesn't know what those things are. She loves to dance and bounce. If you tell her to dance she will do a little sumo squat thing and gyrate. Where did she learn that? I have no idea. The baby einstein puppets make her laugh her pants off. When she smiles she smiles crookedly, with her lower teeth shifted to the right. It's quite funny and I'm sure we'll see that crooked smile in many school pictures to come.

Ry continues to be my cuddly snuggly baby. He'll be standing up holding onto the coffee table, when all of the sudden he'll let go and lunge at your neck, nuzzle in and just hold on so very tight. He'll hug you for twenty minutes at a time, only stopping on occasion to pull back, look at you in the face and kiss you before returning to the crook of your neck for another hug. He is goofy beyond goofy. Always laughing. Loves to be tickled and thrown about and spun in the air.

That boy is absolutely fearless and seems to catch up with Reese developmentally at times out of sheer will and lots of courage. He went from doing the worm as his primary means of transportation to crawling on all fours to standing to jumping to CLIMBING to taking assisted steps all in a matter of 3 weeks. I was sure he'd walk after Reese, and he still may, but he caught up to her so quickly that it will be an interesting race.

Reese is very trepidatious. She enters new situations cautiously and, while she could easily be running already, she's only taken a few independent steps. She is literally too afraid to stand on her own two feet.

Ryan is a weird child. He does odd things all. the. time. I tell everyone he's my little goalie (if you know a hockey or lacrosse goalie, you understand exactly what I mean by that). He'll collect all of his toys and throw them in the dinosaur ball popper and then lean over the hole to allow everything in the dinosaur's belly to hit him in the face. Who does that? The other day I was sitting in a chair and he crawled up to me and started licking my leg like a cat. Strange little bird he is.

My favorite part of the space between ten and eleven months was definitely the babies' full acknowledgement of one another. They went from playing with the same toy or toy stealing to actually playing and interacting with one another. Reese will walk around the coffee table and Ryan will crawl full speed after her and try to bite her heels. She never laughs harder than she does when they play together. The love and patience they have for one another makes my heart swell.



I can't believe we are rounding out our first year as a family.

{ last year, 35 weeks pregnant }

{ this year, two 11.5 month olds }

Cheers to eleven months and happy new year to you and yours!