Baby James: 11 Months

The Bear Series: 11 months

My dear little boy,

You are 11 months old, my son, and seem to be developing now at breakneck speed.  You still weigh a little over 18 pounds, and now sport 5 teeth.  Thankfully, the sleep regression that I found so taxing last month seems to have ended, and you have slipped back into your normal habit of several brief night wakings that rarely last more than a few minutes.  In desperation as we rode out those nights of broken sleep, I tried putting you in a crib, but we were both miserable and have reverted to a mattress on the floor.  This is brilliant because sometimes you wake from a nap, crawl off your bed and spend 20-30 happy minutes playing completely independently.  I love watching you play in the video monitor, guided by nothing more than your own curiosity.

This month you dialed in the pulling to stand thing, though you still use your upper body strength to haul yourself up from your knees, leveraging yourself off the top of your feet.  It doesn't seem the most efficient of methods, but you're getting along quite well.  We recently installed some toy cubby shelves in your room and you love pulling up on these and emptying the entire contents onto the floor.  If I try to restore a sense of order whilst you are still in the room, it's like some kind of comedy sketch where I'm working as fast as possible to stay ahead of your unstoppable drive to recreate the chaos.

You've developed some really adorable little habits that seem uniquely your own.  When you head over to the toy shelves, your first stop is usually the puzzle cube, and you choose a piece to put in your mouth, not because you want to chew on it, but simply because you want to carry it around like a little puppy dog as you crawl about.  When you're sat in your feeding chair, you flirt and play coy, deeply tilting your head to the side - always to the right - and grinning widely when we imitate you.  You recently learned to wave as you and I played facing a mirror, and though you don't consistently deploy that gesture for other people, you simply cannot resist waving when you catch sight of your own reflection on any surface.

The last ever pacifier photo

Part of the reason that you didn't gain much weight this month is because you, along with all the rest of the family except (fortunately) mummy, came down with a doozy of bout of flu which knocked out your appetite for nearly a week.  You have never looked more pathetic and have never been more cuddly.  The lasting impact of this illness, and its attendant stuffy nose, is that you gave up your pacifier suddenly and completely, to the extent that if I offered it to you in an unsettled moment, it would do nothing more than enrage you.

I mourn the passing of the pacifier, as it is a clear indicator that you are growing out of your infancy and my last baby is properly becoming a little boy.  We've got one more month together before I go back to work, and spending time with you is getting to be really fun.  So I'm going make the most of it baby boy, before you aren't my little baby anymore.

I love you with all my heart,
Mummy