Eleven Months: A Letter

Dear Nicholas,

You are now just a few weeks away from your first birthday-- a fact I struggle with accepting daily. On one hand, I couldn't be more excited and proud about who you are and who you are becoming. You are friendly, out-going, and goofy. You've never met a stranger, and you just light up with excitement and curiosity when you're surrounded by new faces. But you have a serious side, too. Rarely do you seem frightened by new places or new experiences, but when you're in unfamiliar surroundings you'll sometimes become very quiet  and pensive, thinking deep thoughts as you take it all in. We think you may become quite scholarly. We are also discovering that you are very independent and seem to have a little bit of a dare devil in you. You are growing, developing, and learning new skills daily-- which is both fun and exciting to watch.

On the other hand, I am sad to see your babyhood fade away. You become more independent by the week, and although I know I've got the better part of two decades until you fly the coop, it makes me sad to think about how you'll need me less and less as the years progress. I'm realizing that motherhood is a very slow, gradual progression of letting go. So I am really just trying to stay present and enjoy every moment. (Or most of them... ; )

On to the good stuff! Your 11th month began just after Thanksgiving while Gammy and Grandpa were visiting and continued through most of December. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas flew by--as they tend to-- with lots of holiday decorating, shopping, and merry-making. On December 22nd, we celebrated our first little family Christmas here in our new house before flying out to the Northwest on the 23rd to spend Christmas in Seattle and a few days afterward in Portland.

You were mostly uninterested in the presents and just wanted to keep pulling up on our glass coffee table (increasingly a no-no due to the sharp corners), but we got you a little bit excited about some crumpled wrapping paper and an alligator toy from Gammy. You were curious about your first Christmas tree, but you were content to just sit back and look at it-- rather than grabbing off the ornaments, as we had feared. We also had fun doing a special craft to remember your first Christmas. We made salt dough ornaments with impressions of your hands and feet. We had numerous takes trying to get an imprint of your hand where you didn't just grab the dough and crinkle it all up, but eventually Daddy perfected the timing of giving you a yogurt melt to distract you just as I pressed your hand into the dough, and we made a few great ornaments which will hopefully grace our tree for years to come.

Month 11 also included some exciting milestones. Although you started pulling up in month ten, you perfected the art during your 11th month. You now can (and do) pull up on just about anything you can get your hands on, and you have started cruising a little bit, particularly along the edge of the bathtub in our bathroom. You think this is so exciting, which is fortunate for us as it occupies you while we're getting ready for work in the morning.

Even more exciting, you really began communicating verbally during your 11th month. In addition to "dada," you can now say "bot" (bottle), "ba" (ball), "bye bye" (though I've only heard it once, the day Gammy and Grandpa flew home, because she had been practicing it with you throughout Thanksgiving weekend), "uh oh" (used when something drops; sometimes you just say "uh" and forget the "oh"), and-- my favorite-- "dut" (duck.) Gammy gave you a Puddles the Duck during her visit and it wasn't long afterward that you started saying "dut, dut, dut" anytime you saw the Duck. Even with Oregon Duck blood running through your veins, I couldn't believe this was your third word (after bye bye, said only once to date) until I remembered that bath time with your rubber "dut" is the highlight of your day. I love seeing how your brain makes connections like this.

You also started clapping this month. Initially you would only clap your hands together once or twice after we clapped a whole bunch, and sometimes you will bring your hands together and miss, but you are becoming increasingly dexterous and will sometimes now clap unprompted.

Our one hurdle during month 11 was finally getting serious about completing your sleep training. You've been going to bed around 7pm regularly for months, usually with very little fuss. But all the way through November you were still waking up once a night-- anywhere between 3-5am-- wanting to eat. The week after Thanksgiving we decided it was time to let you cry it out. The first night you woke up and cried for about 15-20 minutes before I went in to check on you. When I went in, I just rubbed your tummy, but didn't get you out of the crib and you did not like that at all. We were prepared for a long night of crying, but about 10 minutes after my first visit to your room you fell back asleep until after 6am. On the second and third nights there was less crying, and since then, you've regularly been sleeping from about 7pm to 6:30am. I now get 7-8 uninterrupted hours of sleep each night, which has made a huge improvement on my energy levels. So thank you, buddy.

During most of your 11th month, you were nursing first thing in the morning and right before bed, but in the last few days before you turned 11 months, you decided you were through with your morning nursing session and that you prefer a bottle instead. You take 3 other bottles each day at school, which range from 4-6 oz. You are also eating three (!) 6-oz. jars of stage 3 baby food each day at school, in addition to other snacks like large chunks of banana, oatmeal, and yogurt. Your pincer grasp developed early, and you have been self-feeding puffs, yogurt melts, small pieces of cheese, mandarin orange slices in juice, and chunks of cooked food such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, pasta, and waffles (to name a few) for several months now. You are still a little hesitant about new foods and will frequently resist the first few bites, but once you decide something is tasty, you will enthusiastically feed yourself. You still only have 4 upper teeth and 2 lower teeth, but I think you've been working on a new set of lower teeth for a while now. I'm looking forward to cooking more types of foods to expand your palate in the coming months.

Waking up to your smiles and giggles, and coming home to you each evening are the highlights of my day. I love rediscovering the world around me through your big blue eyes, and I know it's only going to get better.

I love you, Goose.

Mommy