11 Months

Weight-?? pounds (up from 19.11 at nine months)

Length-?? inches (up from 29.00 inches at nine months)

Clothes-9-12 months

Diapers-size 3

Eating-Every 4.5-5.0 hours.  Since I am still nursing him we don't really know how much he is eating, but we think around 7-8 ounces.  He usually eats for about 8-10 minutes at each feeding.  We recently cut out our 2:00 feeding.  Now he is eating breast milk and cereal (mixed with about 2 ounces of milk) around 8:00, breast milk and a jar of vegetables around 12:00, breast milk and a jar of fruits around 5:00, and nursing again before bed at 8:00.

This past month he has decided to go on a vegetable strike!  He will still eat his fruits pretty well, but he will not eat his vegetables!  We have tried feeding them to him anyway that we can, and we finally found something that works.  We have to heat them up for a few seconds before feeding them to him.  I guess he doesn't like cold veggies!  Even after we do this he still isn't great about eating them, but it is better!

We also tried him on puffs again, and he really likes them now!  Our first try with puffs didn't go so well (imagine it-Christmas morning, gagging and puking all over all of our new presents!).  He's really good about feeding them to himself.  We have tried banana, blueberry, sweet potato, strawberry apple, and peach mango.  He seems to like all of the flavors!

Sleep-Between 11-12 hours a night!  He is so easy to put down for a nap or for bed!  All he needs is his blanket and his thumb and he's fast asleep.  He is still taking two good naps each day.  He will usually take one 1.5-2.0 hour nap each day.  Sometimes it's his morning nap and sometimes it's his afternoon one.  He is usually awake for about 2-2 1/2 hours in between naps.  On a good day we can still get an early evening nap out of him, but those days are becoming fewer and farther between!

Other-This past month has brought a lot of changes!  Here is a recap of all of the milestones Ethan reached!

• He now has six teeth!  Two on the bottom and four on the top!  He loves to use his teeth to bite his puffs before he eats them!  He also loves to brush his teeth, but you have to be careful that he doesn't bite your fingers!  It really hurts!  
• His only new word is "Huh?".  He says it when you ask him anything!  It's really cute, but it can also start to get a tad bit annoying after about the hundredth time that you hear it!
• He is into EVERYTHING!  He is crawling everywhere on his knees now.  He is also starting to pull up on his knees.  He hasn't shown any interest in walking, but why would he?  He can get wherever he needs to go by crawling!  (He's fast too!)
• He shakes his head "No" when he knows he isn't supposed to do something!  For example, he will crawl over to the dog's water and stop and turn around and shake his head no!  He knows that he's not supposed to get into it, but that doesn't always stop him!
• He can use sign language to sign more!  Loffie (his babysitter) showed it to him one day, and he picked it up instantly.  He knows how to use it in context too.  For example, when he runs out of puffs he will sign more, or when he's ready for another bite of his food he will use the sign.
• He loves to dance!  He has his own dance move too.  He starts bouncing up and down and then he puts his hands up in the air!  It is so cute!  He dances to anything that makes noise, music from a toy or on the tv, the vacuum cleaner, the blow dryer, even the sound of the air compressor.  One day at church the puppets were singing Sister Act's "Oh Happy Day" and he was dancing away in the pew.  Everyone around us was cracking up!
• He loves to get into my sock drawer!  When he's playing in our bedroom he will go straight to my drawer and pull out all of my socks, pantyhose, and knee highs.  He also loves to carry the knee highs around with him!  Actually, he loves to carry anything around with him, but the knee highs are perfect because they are easy to hold on to!  We now find my socks and knee highs all over the bedroom, bathroom, and closet!
• We now have gates up at the bottom and top of the stairs.  We usually leave the top one open, unless we're upstairs playing.  He's already started trying to pull up on the bottom gate!
• My students LOVE watching videos of Ethan!  The school gave us iPads to use for our classroom a few months ago, so I've been able to use that to capture a few videos of my sweet little boy.  I can then hook my iPad up to the projector in my classroom and we can watch the videos of him on the big screen.  My students think it's pretty great (and of course I enjoy showing him off).
• We had another bout of sickness this past month.  He started running a fever while we were at church and by the time we got home it was over 102.  This lasted for about 48 hours.  He didn't have a cold or any congestion, just a fever.  His Nana came to stay with him for part of the day on Monday and I took off work to be with him for the second half of the day.  By that night his fever was down, but it hadn't been 24 hours since his last fever, so my mom came down to keep him on Tuesday.  She loved every minute of playing and snuggling with him!  By Wednesday he was back at Loffie's and ready to play with his friends!  I think he misses them when he's gone!
• We are in full party planning mode!  The theme is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar/St. Patrick's Day".  I'm trying to remind myself that I can't go too overboard because whatever I do for Ethan I have to be able to duplicate for any future babies!

Here are some of the latest pictures of our growing boy!