9, 10, 11.

This baby has grown so much in the last few months and with his first birthday quickly approaching (Saturday!) I thought I'd better get caught up on my blog.

Nine months.

Ten months.

Eleven months.

Ryan now has 11 teeth.  Three of his molars started cutting through last month and boy, has that been fun!  He started crawling right before he hit nine months and on the day of his nine month birthday he crawled over to a chair and pulled himself up to stand.

He's slimmed down some now that he's mobile.  I miss all of those rolls!  He is still wearing a size four diaper and is in 18 month clothing.  Some 12 month tops still fit him but pants are too short.  I put him in a pair of 12 month pants and they looked like capris!

This little boy loves music.  I noticed him bouncing along one day at the grocery store and since then he dances and sings when there's music on.  

He now shakes his head 'no' and nods his head 'yes'.  It's hilarious.  I'll ask him, "Do you want a cookie?" (Cookie = Gerber puffs) and he just smiles and nods.

Ryan has developed an intense love for Mickey Mouse.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is his favorite show.  As soon as he hears the theme song he starts smiling and dancing.  Most days he'll point to the remote control and then to the TV.  I'll ask him, "Do you want to watch Mickey?" and he'll nod his head yes.  As soon as it's time to "do the hot dog dance" he starts dancing and saying "ha" for hot dog.  It's adorable.

He is very loving.  Ryan will give hugs to Daddy and hugs and kisses to me and to Maylyn.  Sometimes he'll hug Kaeleigh but he mostly pushes her away.  He loves her, but from a distance.  :) His favorite thing to do with Kaeleigh is to dog pile.  She'll lie on the ground and he crawls over and climbs on top of her; usually trying to steal her glasses.  No one’s glasses are safe in this house.  He also shows love by doing what we call The Bonks.  He will knock heads with us and we say, "Bonk!"  I'll tell him, "give daddy the bonks” and he'll knock heads with The Husband. 

We’ve finally gotten to the point where he doesn’t need me to nurse him to sleep.  Previously, I would nurse him into a stupor and then lay him down in his crib and sneak out of his room like a ninja so I didn’t wake him up because if he did then I’d have to nurse him back to sleep again.  I created a little boob dependant monster.  When we moved (that’s another blog post) I took advantage of The Husband’s business trips and let Ryan cry it out.  It didn’t take long for him to catch on.  Every now and then he’ll cry for a few seconds but usually falls right to sleep on his own.  Yay!  We seem to be getting into a regular sleep schedule now that his molars have cut through.  He was getting up at least two times and night but lately seems to be sleeping anywhere from 8-9 hours at night.  One night last week he slept nearly 10 hours.  It was amazing!  I, of course, had to go check to make sure he was still breathing even though we have a baby monitor with the movement alarm that goes off if he stops.  I’m paranoid what can I say?

The one thing he hasn’t started doing yet is walking.  Both Kaeleigh and Maylyn were walking by ten months old so I thought for sure he’d be the same but it turns out he’s on his own timetable and he’s pretty stubborn at that.  Don’t try to stand him up and get him to walk to you because he’ll go limp and throw himself backward.  But give him his walker and he’ll push that thing and walk all over!  He gets really mad when he reaches a wall and can’t walk any farther. 

Our new house has A LOT of stairs which he loves to climb.  We’ve been teaching him to slide on his belly when he wants to go down.

I know there have been other things I’ve meant to post about Ryan but if they don’t get written down and blogged about then I forget.  I’ve got lots to catch up on around here.  We’ve got a big, double birthday celebration this weekend!