Sabien - Month 11

Sabien is 11 months old today.

He is a busy guy. Fairly confident on his feet, he waddles with his wide spread, chubby leg gait throughout our house. He shakes his arms up in the air as he does it. He works on speed and squeals with glee. He is now an established walker and can walk nearly as quickly as he can crawl. He truly toddles, and it is the kind of adorable that makes you laugh out loud it is so funny and cute.

He is a happy little guy most of the time. Content to explore the house on his own and happy to follow his brother around as much as possible. He loves to push trucks and trains around making "vrrrrrm" sounds. He flies his planes through the air "wwwoooossshh". Most animals are either fierce lion sounds "grroorrr" or what seems to be a cross between a kitty and a cow "meeeoooo" except fish which are "sssssshhhsssh".

He all of a sudden is patient with books. At the beginning of the month, he would only bat the book away or swipe at it and close it up. By the end, he is taking his favorite books off of the bookshelf and sitting with them, asking us to read them (by calling out loudly for our attention as he holds it). His favorites are books that involve textures and flaps that he can touch and open.

Sabien is full of sweet smiles and sweetness. His big soft belly, bald head, and chubby little legs give him quite the baby look, but he's getting so much more capable! He has little interest in being fed by us and prefers finger food or using his own spoon. However, spoon skills are not very effective. He does get some bites in, but prefers finger food. He does love spoons, though. They are his current security objects. At most times of the day, he will be walking around with either a spoon or a small ball in his hand. He loves balls, throwing, and catch. He also continues to love to climb anything and everything he can manage.

He loves song and music and dancing. He gives strangers many smiles and then flirts shyly into my chest, only to call out to them a few seconds later and repeat the scenario again. However, being in my arms is not quite as perfect a spot for him as it was a month ago. He is a boy on the move who does not want to be hemmed in. He wants to walk around and explore, unless he's tired, in which case he is happy to zonk out in a stroller or car seat (yipppee!).

He hasn't yet learned to be gentle in all capacities, though his improved care of books does signal a shift. We are working on being gentle the plants in the garden. Hopefully that will translate to gentleness to humans, too. It's a hard concept to realize that you can bang the spoon on objects, but not on people's heads, or that hair is not indeed for pulling.

We had a doctor's appointment this month and he's about 83-85 percentile for height and weight. A proportionate, big little guy.

I can hardly believe he'll be a year old next month.