The Grubers: Charlie’s Eleventh Month

(written previously)

Charlie sure is growing up before our eyes. I think he can understand a few words now. For example, when I tell him “no”, he quickly turns to look at me with a questioning and innocent look on his face. When I say “come here”, he will usually start following me wherever I go. He is saying “mama” all of the time now! I like to think that he understands what it means, but I can’t confidently say he knows quite yet. Either way, I sure like hearing it. He is chattering like crazy. He definitely has his own language.

He is starting to climb into and through everything. Under tables, through chair legs, into boxes, over bodies, into baskets. I can tell he really enjoys it. He is crawling more often now, but is still mixing crawling with spurts of army crawling. He can hold onto things and stand up, like the edge of the couch or a chair and start walking along it. Now, whenever he is in the tub, he just wants to hold onto the side and stand up. It is cute, but makes us nervous because he can easily slip. And it makes it more challenging to clean him since he is moving all over the place. Sadly, once he even slipped out and over the side of the tub onto the bathroom floor (while I was away at Girls Week). Also while I was away, he climbed all the way up the stairs (with close supervision, of course)! He has become quite the climber! Whenever he is crawling on a surface that he doesn’t like (like cold tile or itchy grass), he goes into a stinkbug position...he crawls on his hands and toes to avoid touching his knees to the ground.

He LOVES being outside. He took his first bike ride when we were with my family. He loved it! He loves to play with and carry around an old belt. Not the best or most safe of toys, but he loves it and it is hard for me to want to take it away from him. He loves to play with handles and long spoons to use them to point and poke at things. He has started pushing around cars...he has especially loved the red car/truck I brought back from Girls Days. He loves pushing around chairs in the kitchen as far as he can take them until the carpet stops him.

His outdoors "in the zone" look

He is sleeping very well. We have found him a few times sleeping on his stomach with his knees tucked under his bottom (almost like he is kneeling).

A sweet carseat-sleeping picture

He loves crossing his legs when sleeping

He is doing well picking up food and feeding himself. But he is getting more difficult to feed. He has started putting his fingers into his mouth when I feed him...he likes to feel the food in his mouth. It makes a mess all over the place. He doesn’t like to be spoon fed as much anymore. He is much happier to feed himself small nibbles. I do still spoon feed him some things, but you can tell he feels much happier with himself when he is able to do it alone. It is frustrating because it takes about three times as long to feed him now, and he is eating less since the chewing time takes so long. His first tooth officially started cutting through...his bottom right tooth. He did become a little demon at moments while teething, but nothing too unbearable. By the end of the month, that tooth was completely through, and his second tooth (his bottom left) started coming in.

Charlie loves his yogurt!

He likes to hold up his own bottle when he is laying down...

hasn't quite figured it out while sitting up

He is just the sweetest guy ever! He is very ticklish on his back, and it is so cute to see him arch and throw his head back whenever we tickle him.

He has completely stopped taking a Binky by now...which is, of course, a good thing! However, sometimes there are moments when he is fussy in places we need him to be quiet, and it would be nice to be able to shove that thing in his mouth and calm him down. Oh well, I guess I would take that over having to wean him from it when he is two years old!

Charlie is such a little scaredy cat! He is scared of dogs, even tiny newborn puppies! So pathetic. Even more pathetic, he is scared of some soft, brown, furry, blankets that my mom keeps in a chest. She tried opening the chest to let him feel how soft the blankets were, but he retracted his hand immediately and started bawling. He also bawled whenever he saw one of my mom’s giant floor rugs rolled up, because she let it roll down the stairs and made a loud noise. So as it rested on the stairs to go down, anytime we passed it, he would grip me around the neck, tense up, and start crying. When we were watching Tale of Despereaux, he started freaking out anytime the good rat showed up on the screen. Man! How did he become such a scaredy cat?!?

Unfortunately, during this month we have to add to Charlie’s injury count...or should I saw our parental neglect count. He fell down the stairs! All of the stairs! Top to bottom! And that is a good number of steep stairs. I was with Charlie up in his room. I had the door closed so he could play while I read a book. Jason came home from work and came to say hello. Shortly after, he went into the next room to go to the bathroom...leaving Charlie's door open. I was still reading...in my “it is safe” mode...assuming the door was still closed and he wasn’t going anywhere...while Jason assumed that I was still watching him since he was leaving the room. As you have figured out by now, Charlie ventured out of the room and towards the stairs. All of a sudden, we heard a thump, thump, thump....a pause, and then another thump, thump. Jason dashed over to the stairwell, immediately knowing what was happening. I jumped up at the commotion. All we saw was Charlie falling from the last step onto the pillow. It was SO lucky that we still had a body pillow laying at the base of the stairs (we usually put it there when he is playing downstairs, since the gate at the bottom step has to be put up on the second step. The wall on one side does not continue to the base of the stairs). So luckily that body pillow was still there and kept him from falling face first onto the hard tile. He cried, but only for a short moment. I think Jason and I were more shaken up than Charlie was. Oh my gosh! It was such a terrible feeling! So sad! We have made sure to be a lot more careful 24/7 from now on!

Pictures from the month: