Sorry for the disappointing, poor-quality shots of the bean. He won’t sit still long enough.

Wow – where did the time go? Our little man is eleven months old today, and is crawling all over the place. Just about a week and a half ago, he finally consistently started crawling on all fours. I know, I know. He’s a slow one, that Jack. :)

GAMES: Our favorite games to play are peek-a-boo and “tag”.

He’s been playing peek-a-boo since around 8 months, but it’s a lot more fun now. Lay him in his crib with his blanket and he’ll pull it on and off his face and giggle at you. I think if we put him in front of a mirror, he loves it so much he’d play peek-a-boo with himself!

Tyler plays tag with him all the time. It’s hilarious to watch the two of them race on all fours around the coffee table. Tyler “hides” (not so well, I might add — his butt is always sticking up in the air), and Jack sneakily pulls up on the table to see where he is. Then they race in circles and try to catch one another. How adorable is that??

Jack also loves his new foam blocks ($30 but well worth every penny). Build him a tower and he’ll knock it over in 2 seconds flat.

He’s also a fan of highlighters (caps on, of course), his xylophone (it has wheels and he drags it around everywhere), and his toy cars.

FOOD: Jack loves to eat everything. The kid has never met a food he didn’t like.

He eats everything we eat, spicy or not! Tortilla soup, curry, enchiladas, sweet potato stew. You put it in front of him and he’ll eat it. (Although I might clarify you’re going to have to spoon feed him. He’s funny about touching food with his hands — weird, I know — and will only pick up a cheerio or graham cracker on rare occasion.)

I’m working on weaning him off the of the bottle. He’s going to drink soymilk, like me, and so far he loves it. I cut out his mid-day bottle, but he still drinks about 3-4 ounces in the morning and at night. I think it’s mostly out of habit. My biggest problem is that he’s scared of the new sippy cup that we bought him (it’s got a straw, but didn’t he already learn how to use one?), and he can’t use his old cup on his own (it doesn’t have a straw, and he won’t tilt his arms up to get liquid out of it). Sigh.

SLEEP: Still sleeping 12 hours at night, and about 4 hours or more of naps during the day. He loves to sit and babble to Leonard (a stuffed lion) in his crib. I tried to transition him out of his morning nap, but unsuccessfully. He still takes a morning, mid-day, and late afternoon nap — and goes to bed around 6:30pm.

TALK: Boy, does this kid talk, more than ever. In the words of my dear father, “he has found his voice”.

Today he made the connection that Tyler is “Dad”. He will babble “Dadadada”, but usually he just says “dad”. It brought tears to my eyes! I am so excited for him to keep learning! Maybe the next word will be Mama? But who am I kidding. He won’t even make the “mmm” sound.

He also loves to say “EH?!” really loud. He’s known to sit in his crib and yell “EH? EH? …. EH?” anytime of day (5:30am the past two days, in case you were wondering. This of course made the half-asleep Tyler and I erupt into fits of giggle and laughter at our crazy child.) We’re thinking of making him a Canadian for Halloween. Now if only we could get him to say “eh” on command…

MOBILITY: Crawling + pulling up on things. Crawling on all fours (finally! It’s so much less of a mess than tummy scooting!) but only pulling up onto his high knees. Found him in his crib ONCE standing up. He bonked his nose on the coffee table yesterday and the place where he scratched it started bleeding. I guess there’s a first time for everything. Maybe we’ve lucked out because that’s the first real “injury” we’ve had — no bumps or bruises yet! We guesstimate he’ll be walking by 13 or 14 months. No rush for us — every kid is different!

We love you, baby Jack! You’re growing up so fast and we love you more and more every day. I was so sad for a while that “my baby” was growing up, but look how fun this kid is! So I snapped out of it and realized he gets cooler to be around the older he gets. The world is so new and fascinating to him. Today he sat and played with the door for a long while, excited that it swings open and closed. Ahhh, to be a kid again.