Milestones: 11 months. Somebody hold me

If I write this post it means acknowledging my baby is 11 months old. If I write this post I will possibly cry in my dark living room while half writing/half watching the Daily Show and mostly just trying to come to terms with the growing of my baby.

Birthdays are not my favorite thing, so it pains me that my boy's first birthday is 3 weeks from now. Like, I hate it. One is terrible, forget two, one is where the brattiness starts. He's already pulling stuff out of cupboards and trying to eat crayons all the time, imagine the things he could accomplish when he learns to walk. This birthday is sad enough for me, I can't even think about how big he is getting, so I'm going to try to get through this as painlessly as possible. The outlook is grim.

When I went to put a onesie sticker on him this month I realized there was only one left. Then I got sad. This boy has grown faster than I could imagine, he is crawling at lightning speed, pulling himself up to stand on everything, and walking around the couch and walls like he owns the place. He has gotten brave this week and tried to step away from the couch, and I was nice and resisted the urge to push him back down and try to delay this walking crap. He will walk soon enough, in spite of my willing him to sit and play nicely instead.

Witten is my big studly man, he is 19 lbs 13 oz, but he still wears size 9 months clothes. His muscles are compact, he does pilates or something. He still nurses for most of his meals, but I never feed him baby food anymore, unless you count Gerber puffs. At dinnertime he sits in his high chair and eats some of the food that we are eating, just cut up into smaller pieces. His favorite thing to do at meal times is to beg David for bites of his lunch, mostly by yelling at David and demanding bites while saying "dad dad dad dad" which clearly makes him irresistible. His favorite things to beg his daddy for are pasta, cereal, sandwiches, and especially whatever David is drinking.

This boy loves to play, he loves to smile, and he loves to laugh. The only exception to this is when people that he doesn't know very well try to talk to him, he stares them down with the most unimpressed look I've ever seen. He's all Move along, random old lady at Walmart, there's nothing to see here. Yes, yes I'm cute, but that's none of your concern. Just go pay for your Lean Cuisine and I'll go about my day and smile at my mommy as soon as you walk away. There you go, keep walking. Its not that he's unfriendly, he's just not easily amused with people. Unless you are Alana, then he finds you hilarious. If you aren't Alana, keep on moving.

The thing that has surprised me a lot in the last month is how much he loves to play by himself. His favorite game is solo-fetch, he throws a ball, crawls to get it, throws it again, etc. He finds this game to be super fun, it keeps him occupied for a long time. He also really really really loves cars and trucks, pretty much anything on wheels. He started playing with all of the girls Barbie cars awhile ago, pushing them around and making little car noises because evidently boys are born knowing how to make sound effects. After he had played with every pink and purple car we have I dug up all of the various cars and Lightning McQueen toys we have and he has been pushing them around the house like a crazy guy since then. He loves a good road trip.

Witten has 8 teeth, which he uses to bite my fingers if I try to fish out any choking hazard he puts in his mouth. He is ferocious, that boy, do not put your hands near his mouth.

He's so big and grown up already that it hurts me. Tonight he was standing up in the bathtub, crawling all over his sisters and pulling their hair, doing exactly what little brothers do best. I washed his manly dark curls and pulled him out of their, hurrying to dry him off because he was already trying to escape. As soon as he was free of my towel he stood back up again, his naked little butt sticking out because he was trying to reach into the tub again and get more toys out. I just sat there behind him, trying to burn the memory of how small he is right now into my head. If he's my last baby, I will never have another 11 month old again. He is trying to grow and catch up with the big kids, constantly crawling into the girl's room to play with them and their toys, acting like he's all big and bad. But he's not, he's my baby and he refuses to act like it.

This boy is my life, but I feel like he is crawling away from me and towards his first birthday. He keeps growing, playing with cars and making sound effects, bumming cookies from me when I think he's not paying attention and I can eat them in peace, waking me up at 5:30 every morning cause he's an early riser, sitting on my lap and watching Mickey Mouse, rocking back and forth to music cause he's got the music in him, pulling my sunglasses off, and giving me slobbery boy kisses. I can't think anymore about his birthday in 3 weeks, it makes me sad. All I can do is give him all of my love everyday and hope that I'm doing everything I can so he knows he is special and he is loved, and most importantly that he grows up to be a good man who knows that I cherished everyday of his first year, even though he insisted on growing up way too quickly.