My 11-month-old little guy...::sigh::... I am so in love with him!

Eating...

Well, we're still 99.9% breastfeeding.  He eats the occasional cheerio or sweet potato puff.  Dh has also given him an animal cracker or two.  He will bite off a little bit of that.  He still tends to gag if something gets stuck on the middle of his tongue.  He really prefers to keep everything to the front of his mouth until he swallows it.  He might take a sip of water once a week?  We offer it to him everytime we sit down for dinner but he usually just chews on it and then tosses it to the floor, along with any food we give him.  I think he is started to get frustrated with himself because he wants to eat things but just can't do it yet with the gagging.  Soon enough, right?  Caetlyn didn't eat any solids til she was 15 mos. so we've been down this road before.  I keep reminded myself- at least Nathan doesn't have a problem touching foods of varying textures like Caetlyn did.

So Nathan nurses every 2-3 hours during the day and at night (or even more often at night).  He also wants to nurse other times, like when he falls or gets scared.  All normal stuff for a breastfed baby/toddler.  He seems to be eating better the past few days.  I could see some improvement start about a week ago and then I was gone all day Saturday and screwed up by not pumping enough.  Ugh, I paid for that one!  Now we're back on track, I think (hope).

Sleeping...

As I said, he still nurses a lot during the night.  He goes to bed around 8 and if he wakes up before midnight, dh will try to resettle him.  Sometimes it works and sometimes not.  We're not pushing it too hard because of his ears.  If he's in pain, I don't want to take away something that comforts him, YK?  A lot of times I am so exhausted that I fall asleep while nursing him and he stays latched on far longer than I'd like.  I am just not able to stay awake long enough to get him unlatched these days.  Oh well.  We'll deal with that soon enough.  Oh!  We had to lower his crib mattress!  He finally figured out how to pull himself up to stand in his crib.  Now, he doesn't know how to sit himself up so this was pulling himself up from lying down (belly or back, we're not sure since we didn't see it).  Luckily, dh was in the room with him.  He was using his computer when I put Nathan down for a nap and he suddenly realized Nathan was chattering away and having a grand ol' time.  He turned around to find Nathan standing up like a big boy!  Down the mattress went, that very instant!  I also moved the crib about a foot from the bed so I can stand up to life him out of it.  I need some leverage, YK?  This change doesn't seem to have affected him much.

Naps are 50/50 good/too short.  He takes a morning nap about 2 hours after getting up.  Then he takes an afternoon nap about 2 hours (sometimes 3) after getting up from the morning nap.  His "too short" naps are usually 45 minutes.  His "good" naps are 1.5 hours or longer.  You can totally see a difference in his mood when he gets a good nap vs. a too short one.

Development...

Nathan still does not crawl!  He can move himself on his belly and does seem to be content to do that more than last month but he still really wants to be on his feet.  He will get up on hands and knees and move his knees forward.  He just hasn't figured out how to move his hands forward so he goes down onto his belly.  I keep thinking he'll get it one of these days but I don't know...  I think because of this, he hasn't figured out how to get into a seated position by himself.  Boy, that would make him happier.

Nathan spends most of his time (when not being held) cruising around.  He is getting faster and faster!  He cruises along toys, furniture, walls, you name it.  If he starts to lose his balance, he will scream!  He gets scared.  I think this is why he isn't walking yet.  He totally has the skills to do it.  You can tell he is really balancing himself a lot when he holds onto your fingers to walk around.  But he is too scared to let go.  He can even do it holding onto just 1 finger but, again, he gets scared.  He's had a lot of nasty falls.  He falls backwards and hits his back/head.  It really ticks him off!  He does the breath-holding scream, finally lets out 2 cries and then stops immediately.  It is so weird!

As far as talking goes, Nathan is still mostly saying da-da and jabbering.  He can say ma-ma but rarely does it.   I love the sound of his voice!  He also does lots of screeching, especially when he's happy.  And oh my does he have a heart-breaking cry.  I think it's his secret weapon.  He uses it when he doesn't get his way.  I can barely stand to see/hear it.  it just makes my heart melt!  I told dh this is going to be a problem when it comes to disciplining him!  He sticks out that lip, oh boy.  It's different from his other cries.

An update on Nathan's ears- he still has fluid in them and we are waiting to see an ENT next month.  Either we can just wait this out (esp. considering it's still winter- the worst time for this stuff) or he'll need some kind of treatment.  I, personally, think his adenoids are involved because he does some snorting.  For now we just treat him with Motrin when he seems to be in pain (like grabbing his ears and screaming).  The NP had told me that fluid in the middle ear doesn't produce any symptoms but I have found out otherwise.  Did a little research and it explained a lot.  Turns out Nathan may not have had any actual ear infections.  May have just been the fluid causing his pain all along.  I hate it when I'm given inaccurate info!  Geez...

Size wise Nathan is about 18 lbs.  He hasn't been measured in a while but he's probably between 27 and 28 inches.  I'll update that after his 12 month wbv.