My baby Andrew is ELEVEN months old!

Hello big guy!

    And the count down till the first birthday starts now! Waaaah! I'm not ready! It has come so fast, I feel like someone is sitting on the remote control of my life and the fast forward button is stuck. Slow. Down!

    Pretty soon he's going to be off and running and we'll be entering the new stage of life, toddlerhood. At least when he's tucked into the nook of my arm nursing, he looks like my little baby still, with his little feet, and chunky thigh rolls. Sigh. I'll hold onto that for as long as possible.

The start of "monkey face",  a face grandma taught both my kids as babies

   Our one year well visit is next month so here's what I know:

Size: He's been in 12m-18m clothing lately. The stride rite shoes I bought last christmas for a killer deal, the ones I thought looked HUGE and would never fit him, actually DO fit him now. I get people once again telling me he looks tall for his age (I got that all the time with Eli too) but I'm pretty sure he's right on target for length. He definitely looks fuller at this age than my string bean Eli did.

Mommy's so funny

Likes:Eating! Being held, exploring his environment, his blankie, cheerios, bath time, seeing what big brother is up to and seeing how he can interrupt play along, squealing really loud, saying "oooowww, oooooww" and "ba ba ba ba" over and over again, and being worn in his carrier.

Such a happy go lucky kiddo

Dislikes: running out of food, and long car rides. Diaper changes aren't too fun at this point either.

He's a dare devil just like his brother and daddy. Shortly after this photo, the chair tipped over and he fell forward laughing

Feeding:Eating is a non issue. The kid loves to eat and he's taken to any form of container for his water. He does straws, my glass cup, Liam's sippy cups, bottles, you name it. He loves drinking water. He eats 3 big meals a day and as many snacks as I'll let him. When I'm off at work, he still gets pumped breast milk in a bottle. Nursing is going strong, but sometimes he lets me know he's just not interested in feeding at the moment. So depending on the day, we probably only nurse about 4, maybe 5 times a day at this point.

Now he can climb in and out safely. He's got this move down.

Sleeping: Sleeping is going pretty well now. He's past that phase of waking up around midnight, thank God, and now just gets up around 4-5am to eat and back to bed until about 7:30-8am. This is an improvement because he was wanting to start his day around 5:30-6:30 last month which was brutal. Its been nice with him sleeping in. As long as I'm not expected to get up earlier than 7am, I can handle it. He only does the one nap now around 11ish. I'm trying to get him to go down around noon now that Eli starts school tomorrow and I was able to switch him to the afternoon class that goes 12-2:30. This momma wants some time to herself to get stuff done!

"Look ma, I'm about to do no hands!"

Milestones: He's now walking regularly along furniture and even venturing across gaps in furniture. He'll take the brown chair pictured above and use it as a walker all along the hardwood, ha ha.He's an old pro at pulling himself into the standing position. The other day he stood solo for a few seconds before he realized what he was doing and plopped himself onto his butt. He'll sit on our  floors and with the heel of one foot, spin himself around 360 degrees. Over and over he can do this. Its hilarious! He's gained one tooth this past month for a total of 4 uppers and 2 lowers.

Playing with his puzzle.

That's all for now!
-Linds