11-month letter

Dear Mateo,
You are a busy 11-month-old boy! Your eleventh month was all about exploration and quite a lot of frustration. It's funny to write about it now, because you became such a happy boy when you learned to walk at the ripe old age of 11 months, 1 week...but that's for next month's letter. (The tenses might be wacky in this letter, because some things only happened last month and are now obsolete, while some are still quite current.)


During September, you worked hard practically around the clock on walking. You seemed to realize suddenly that there were more things in heaven and earth than the chair you might be holding onto and you wanted to check them all out. However, you didn't want to crawl to them, you wanted to walk! You spent a LOT of time feeling unhappy about this. At some point, you transitioned from appearing to be teething all the time to just plain being cranky all the time. I realize it sounds like I'm complaining here, but I'm not. From my perspective (of being with you pretty much around the clock), this is an objective fact. You were cranky. It was kind of a tough month that way. And we still managed to get through it and to find happy moments interspersed in the crankiness. Here are some things that make you happy:

Being with one of your moms. When you weren't struggling with gravity, you wanted to be with one of us. You wanted to be carried around and close to us all the time. If we left the room for a few minutes, you let us know that you wanted us back. You began to discover your cuddly side, which we thought was very cute. And, you continued to really enjoy being with Mommy.



And, pushing your own stroller! This was one of your most favorite things to do this month. You pushed your stroller everywhere! You even walked most of the way home from our local park one night.


Also, you've started to develop more of an appreciation for solid foods. Once we stepped back and let you decide for yourself how much you wanted to eat, you got a lot more comfortable with the idea. You developed a love (bordering on obsession, really) for cream cheese. For some reason, you prefer it spread on something instead of just in a little lump on the plate. We've had many breakfasts together in which you eat all the cream cheese off the top of my bagel and I eat whatever is leftover. Since cream cheese was all you would eat for quite awhile, we were happy that your one food of choice had some solid calories in it.


You've also gotten more into fruits and occasionally veggies. And, a particular combination of rice, beans, chicken, avocado and sour cream available from one of our local restaurants. We love going there, too, and are always happy to take you there :) You also, like most kids, love bread. Especially Grammy's special cheese toast.


I am happy to report that sleep is actually going better. In fact, (knock on wood) it's actually going pretty well. You nurse off to sleep fairly regularly these days, which we are okay with because you now know how to get yourself to sleep, too. For those times when you don't nurse down, Mommy reads you some stories and rocks you to your lullabies and you drift off peacefully in your crib.

I write this, I'm imagining myself of a few months ago reading this and passing out in shock. There were times (and many of them) when I thought you would never learn how to sleep on your own. It has been a long, hard road and I'm sure there are still some bumps waiting for us. But, for now, it is very satisfying to be at this point and be able to say that sleep is going well.

Here you are in a rare sleeping moment in your old carseat, which we still use occasionally:


So, those are some of the things you've been up to. Overall, you've been exploring. You have figured out several new things, including how to open the cupboards in the kitchen and how to open the oven. Needless to say, an oven lock is soon going to become the newest member of our family. You are showing signs of wanting to climb things, such as baby gates, bookshelves, and the rocking chair. You are a busy little boy and we are having tons of fun with you.

You also had a big old time exploring your grandparents' house recently. You walked all over with Grammy...

... and loooooved playing a finger puppet game with Grandpa.


You had tons of fun with Apa when he visited, too!




So far, here are some personality traits I associate with you (thanks to Wendy and Karen for the idea!): sweet, inquisitive, determined, and energetic!


Mateo, we love being your parents. We are thankful every day that you came to join our family. And, we can't believe you're almost a year old! More on that in the next letter :)

In the meantime, we love you oodles and oodles of noodles. Mwa, mwa!

love, Mama and Mommy

PS: We want to wish a very happy birthday to Nils and Liam, your friends who turned one on October 6th and 7th, respectively. Happy birthday, little guys!