Eleven Months Old

It's a bit silly to be posting this eleven month old post just two weeks before Tristan's first birthday(gulp!), but I can't resist recording those special things that have happened over the past month. This has been a huge month for Tristan developmentally. As I noted in prior posts, Tristan started crawling, pulling to stand and cruising this month. With these developmental leaps, we've had major changes on the sleeping front. Just after he started crawling and pulling up, he started waking up at night at about 3am. Yuck! That passed pretty quickly, but it was exhausting! He can now crawl lightning fast! It's hard to keep up with him. The other day, he crawled from the computer to the dog bowl in about three seconds and was happily splashing away before I was able to reach him. I have to make sure every single door is closed, every choking hazard is placed up high and block all other entrances. I was in no hurry to see this big boy crawl for this very reason. He is persistent, too. I'll remove him from a dangerous area, take him to another room, and put him down just to have him crawl back three seconds later. I'm one tired mommy! Maura helps me keep on the lookout for small toys. If she sees Tristan crawling towards small things, she runs in front of him, grabs the toys, and says, "No Tistan, those are choking hazbards!"

Tristan's other advances have been in language. He started the month with a vocabulary of about two words. Since then, his language has exploded. He says Mama, Dada, Hat, Ball, Hi kitty, Hi dogdog, Woof, Thea, thank you, bye bye, ba ba(bottle). He signs "all done" and "more"( not correctly, but consistently!) I'm pretty sure that's more than Maura knew at the same age, but I'll have to look it up. He's really into gesturing and points at everything that he wants to know about. He loves waving hi and bye bye, but not always on command.

Tristan is an EATER! He loves to eat and does it with gusto! He loves solid food. He's still eating baby food, but he's not nearly as enthusiastic as he'd been prior to starting the good stuff. He gets so excited when I get out the finger food and he downs it quickly making smacking noises all the while. Right now his favorites are bananas, spaghetti, bread and cheese. He makes a huge mess and loves every second! He's done nursing as of tonight. We had really cut down on the number of times I nursed him over the past month. He's only been nursing in the morning and evening, but he's getting so active while he nurses and trying to roll over and push up. OUCH! I've been seriously contemplating stopping for some time, but today he was so awful both this morning and this evening that I think we'll just call it quits. I don't think he'll miss it, but I will! My baby is growing up too quickly!

Sleeping is still an issue for Tristan. Right before Daylight Savings time, we had a great schedule with bedtime at 7pm and wakeup at 7am. Recently he's been awakening earlier and earlier. Just a few days ago it was 4am. Uggg. I've had to let him cry a lot more and attempt to allow him to sooth himself. Napping is still a huge issue--he's really difficult to get down. Yesterday he didn't nap for the entire day. Thankfully, we don't have too many days like that, but when they happen I'm about ready to sell him to the gypsies!

I can hardly believe that we'll be celebrating his first birthday in just two weeks! He's such a joy and brings us so much happiness. He charms us every single day with his smiles, giggles and kisses. I love the moment right before bedtime when he looks at me, rubs his face on mine and gives me lots of kisses. What a lover. He melts my heart!