Almost A Year

Evan, 11 month old

My baby boy is getting older. Though he is probably not gaining so much weight. He looked slimmer, not very fatty and chubby, but healthy, grow, and develop well. I enjoyed watching him mastering new skills day by day.

At his 10 month old age, I could say he was really on the move. He could control his movement from standing to sitting without toppling over. He learned to balance his body so that he could get up from kneeling to stand up on the floor only for a few second. He was also started to walk by holding on hands or furniture. So we had a lot of fun practises pre-walking movements He loved pushing furniture and we started to hold his hands to walk him around the house. He even could stand unaided and made a few steps if I let go of his hand!

His exploration on food has widen. One day we went to a restaurant (TGIF) and had a blast of new food. He had his first french fries and fried sweet potato and pear in slices, and he loved them. But I still give him plain chicken/meat porridge with vegetable on daily basis.

There's something that quite annoying. That was when he mastering his fine grasp between finger and thumb, and very accurate, and have full control of his hands. He was so in love with dropping and picking up games. He would drop food, toys, or spoon-everything endlessly from highchair then watch them fall, then shout and point for me to pick them up, only for him to drop them again.

However, I was so excited to see that he finally could stack his sized cups and rings in the pole, and that he enjoyed put things to the bucket or container, not for so long, though, as he got distracted to something else easily.

Another interesting thing was he would stay still and listen when I talk as if I was reading one of his book. At least it save my time and energy when feeding and changing nappy. His favorite was the story about Toby's Train :)

As for the schedule, there was a slight change:

7am = wake up, bottle
8.30 = breakfast: cereal &fruit
9am = bath
10am = bottle
10.15 = morning nap
12pm = lunch : porridge

2pm = snack (fruit or bread or anything)
3pm = bottle
3.30 = afternoon nap
5 pm = dinner : porridge
06.30 = bath, then play and read book
7.30 = bottle
8 pm = sleep
4 am = bottle

New other things he had last month:

- I notice sometimes lullaby bothering him. He would put his hand on my mouth as if saying "please don't sing anymore, i want to sleep!" :)

-However, lullaby still be a perfect weapon to make him settle when restless or difficult to get to sleep. Come To the Window and Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star usually will make him finally asleep and settle.

- Having the room pitch dark will make him go to sleep better.

- Walking walking walking. That's what he want most of the time when he is awake. Hardly play with his toys anymore. He just love to walk and touch things on the way, or walk and push chairs or tables.

The highlight was just a day before he turned 11 month old, somehow he tripped when he crawl. He bumped his face to the hard floor. That was the first time he got really injured after lots of hit, bump, and fall. This time his lips were bleeding, quite bad, followed to the swollen of his upper lip. I learned that the ice was helpful to stop the mild bumping injury. His swollen lip was gone after around 3 hours. Still, it was a heartbreaking looking at him bleeding and crying.