Home Sweet Alaska: Boyd

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Boyd - 11 months

In just a few short weeks I'll be the mother of a 1-year old. Sometimes I look at Boyd and wonder how we got so lucky to have such a beautiful, healthy, and inquisitive baby.

Boyd has been waving when we say "hi" or "bye-bye." Sometimes he'll even just do it out of the blue or with two hands. I'm sure we look like idiots waving to him all of the time, but hey, when a baby interacts waves at you - you wave back.
Likes shaking his head back and forth, like he's saying "no." I'm not sure he knows what it means, but it's still funny to see him do it with a smile on his face.
This cracks us up too, but it's hard to explain - Boyd will scrunch up his face and breathe in and out really quickly through his nose. Somehow he gets us all to do it and then we're all laughing hysterically. Where do babies get this stuff?
He says "dada" a lot. Constantly and every day. I say "mama" to him and he sweetly replies "dada!" He uses varying inflections, depending on the situation. Really happy? Screams it. Mellow? Says it like he's talking about a mythical creature.
I dread diaper changing time now. The best analogy I can offer is it's like wrestling an octopus - a writhing mass of arms and legs. Especially if an octopus shrieks and screams in the process, and tries to roll over on the changing table with a diaper full of poop.
Has been all over the dog lately. He will crawl up to Drift to pet him, taste his fur (yuck), or hug him. Boyd will also do this thing where he'll use Drift's body as leverage to get into a standing position. The other day he did this and then promptly tumbled over Drift.
Yes, our baby has been standing BY HIMSELF for a few seconds at a time. I'm not sure we're ready for our Tasmanian Devil to start walking yet. We just put up baby gates to block off his access to both sets of stairs. He is quite the fast crawler and moves faster than I thought possible.
Another thing he loves to do is a baby-modified version of the Captain Morgan pose (crouching with one knee up).
My mom works with him on vocabulary when she watches him, and at home D and I explain things to him so we think he's picking up a wide range of language skills.
He absolutely is a music fan. Likes to do his version of dancing - sitting on his knees and bouncing up and down. We'll say, "let's play music" and he'll hit the music player's buttons.
How exactly do you discipline an 11-month old? Anything we tell him not to touch (e.g. the stand-alone radiator in his room, the pet water bowl, etc.) he of course touches and gets a big smile on his face. I know it's a big game to him but I'm getting tired of pulling him away from this stuff.
We're pretty thankful that he loves food - all and any types. He's still drinking breastmilk, although less than before, and when he turns 1 we'll start supplementing with whole cow's milk. Or I've heard goat's milk is really beneficial (it's most like human milk) but I'm not sure where to get that in Anchorage.
This week there were a couple challenging evenings when he we would wake up about 40 minutes after bedtime and couldn't soothe himself back to sleep. I'm thinking he has too much excitement about learning new skills (like he can't turn his brain off). So I would have to go in to calm him down, which mainly consists of singing songs (which he loves) and holding him. He still goes down sleepy but awake for naps and bedtime. We're on a fairly consistent schedule for sleep (most days). Nap times are around 9:45 a.m. (takes about 15 minutes to fall asleep) and 2:30 p.m. (15 mins to sleep).
At night we start the bedtime routine at 6:45 p.m. (diaper, jammies, nursing/milk, books and songs, then sleep.)