11 Months

Parks is 11 months old! He has almost survived a whole year in this wild family. We are loving the stage he is in. He is learning all sorts of new tricks and he has a pretty good fan club around here to cheer him on and to be excited about all of his accomplishments.

Some things we want to remember about Parks at 11 months:

- 20.4 lbs. 20% percentile. I was thinking this number seemed familiar so I just looked back at his ten month post and I guess he is the exact same as he was last month. Part of me is surprised about that since it feels like I'm constantly feeding him, but the other part of me isn't surprised since he spends every waking moment on the move. He is doing everything he can to keep up with Darcy and Ezra.

- He LOVES to be outside. I have started opening the back door and just letting him go. He goes out with Darcy and Ezra or sometimes just by himself and explores the backyard. His favorite thing seems to be eating the dirt. I'm wondering how long it will take him to realize that stuff isn't very good. Since our trampoline is in the ground he can crawl straight onto it and bounce. He also loves climbing in and out of the raised garden bed.

- He started to clap a few days ago. I also noticed he was driving cars and planes around and making an engine noise. Of course we think he's a genius. (If your kid did these things earlier just don't tell us.) Haha!

- He says "Hi!" We hear him say "mama", "dada", "baba", and "tickle, tickle" but we're pretty sure none of them mean anything to him at this point.

- We noticed he gets really excited about motorcycles. He had his first ride and loved it.

- He walks around the room holding onto things. We have been trying to get him to stand on his own, but after doing it one time he will no longer even put his feet down to try it. He bends his legs up behind him and won't put them down until we give up holding him in the air.

- Thankfully he seems to love the chaos of our little home/family. Sometimes there will be yelling and wild playing and my head starts spinning from the noise and I look over at him and he is looking around and smiling at all the people making the noise thinking it's a party. A lot of times he add a few little screams into the din for good measure.

- He loves baths and I am having to start watching him carefully if bath water is running. He is really working on climbing up into the tub and he has almost made it over a couple times.

- It seems like he wants to be eating all day long, but I am struggling to come up with things to feed him. He only broke his fourth tooth a couple weeks ago. So I'm trying to figure out what to feed a really hungry growing little guy that he won't choke on.