11 Months

At the end of this month, Jonas made some big leaps in his development. He's now a lot more mobile and is seeming much more "toddlerish." I can't believe he'll be 1 soon. I get a little sad thinking of him leaving the baby days behind, but it's a lot of fun seeing him grow up. 

Firsts

• First time to go from laying down to sitting up on his own. He learned how to do this in his crib. It was so funny the first time I went to get him up from his nap and he was just sitting there looking at the door. He looked quite proud of himself. I thought maybe he had used the bars to pull himself up, but later I saw him do it in the middle of the living room floor with no assistance. 
• Soon after that, he pulled up to stand on his own. He also did that for the first time in his crib (and spent many days avoiding napping by pulling himself up and screaming until I came in and laid him down). But the first time I got it on camera is the picture above (Blogger won't let me put it in the right place). He now loves to pull up all the time and can cruise around furniture. 
• First Halloween. He was a lion and looked adorable. I don't think he knew what to make of his costume. Every time I put him in it, he got kind of quiet and timid. 





I took him to our neighborhood church's Fall Festival with my friend Laura and her son, Gabriel. The look of scared confusion on his face is pretty much how he seemed anytime we put his costume on. 



Our playgroup went to a pumpkin patch. Jonas just wanted to eat the pumpkins. 






I hosted a small Halloween party for our playgroup. We had Halloween-themed snacks, read a Halloween book, and played with spaghetti "brains." From left to right: Silas the lumberjack, Myla the giraffe, Jonas the lion, and Avery the ballerina. 



• First cow's milk. The pediatrician said we could start him on cow's milk at 11 months. We cheated and started about a week before. He seems to like it pretty well, so I've started the weaning process. I'm looking forward to having some more freedom. 

Things I Want to Remember

• Jonas is going through a phase where he constantly says "mmm-hmm" or "uh-huh" with varying inflections. Because of this, it often seems like he can understand a lot of what we say, although I think it's just a coincidence. He does seem to understand that when we ask him a question, he should have a response, so he always says "mm-hmm." Or, when Darby and I are talking to each other, we'll say something like, "Jonas is so cute," and he'll say, "uh-huh." It's hilarious. 
• He has now really gotten the hang of clapping and claps when he hears or sees other people clapping or if we say "Yay!" 
• He likes to wave bye-bye, but he only does it when he is the one leaving. He also associates it with walking through doors, so sometimes he'll wave bye when I carry him out of his bedroom into the hallway. 
• Ever since daylight savings time ended, he's been waking up at 6 or 6;30 instead of 8 like he used to. So we've started putting him to bed at 7:30 instead of 8:30, which gives us more time to get stuff done at night. In the mornings, we'll often put him in bed with us and he'll usually sleep at least 30 more minutes. However, he only likes to be close to me in the mornings. Specifically, he has to be holding on to my hair. So Darby gets to sleep peacefully while I have a little person pulling my hair, slapping me in the face, etc. To his credit, Darby has tried to take Jonas to his side of the bed, but Jonas protests so much that I have to take him. Good thing he's such a cute snuggler!