11 1/2 Months

I'm so mad at myself for waiting to post an 11 month update. I guess I did do a post mid-way through 10 months, but still...It's amazing how fast they are growing and yet, sometimes I'm surprised how babyish they still are. I'm happy about that. They're doing so much more, but they'll still let me rock them and they're still small and cuddly some of the time.

Weight: At 11 months Luke weighed 19.8 pounds. Micah weighed 19.4 pounds. I don't have their heights but I would guess Micah is about an inch taller than Luke.

Luke has finally started crawling on all fours. He's still a little clumsy with it, but it's good to see him making an effort. Lately he's been hanging his head down so it's almost dragging on the floor, so that trips him up some. Other times he just gets going so fast that his hands get stuck underneath him and he face-plants. The other day his head was down and he ran into the door. Silly kid bumps his head so often. He always has at least one bruise on his head. He's still receiving PT to improve his tone and trunk strength. Our target areas lately are getting him to pull up to stand (one foot at a time) and then get back to sitting or all fours. We're also working on him reaching side to side while standing. I love his PT sessions, it's fun to see him challenged and learn tips for helping him. I'll definitely miss it when he doesn't need it any more. Luke's doing a great job of feeding himself. With his hands, we haven't attempted utensils yet. His favorites lately are cheerios and freeze dried fruit. He doesn't really like any finger food that's wet. The other day I gave him pureed broccoli and he stuck his hand in his mouth to try to scrape it off his tongue. He wasn't a fan. :) He's exclusively taking bottles during the day now. He drinks about 4-5 ounces of a mixture of breastmilk and formula every 4 hours. At bedtime we try to get him to drink 6 ounces. He's mostly waking once per night to eat. Two nights in a row he refused to breastfeed, but would take bottles. Last night he did nurse and only for 3 minutes. That was the only time he woke all night! We try to put him to bed around 7:30 and he wakes up around 7:00-7:30 in the morning. He's doing a great job with naps, for the most part. Usually I just put him in his crib and he'll play for a while and then fall asleep without fussing. Sometimes he'll throw all his pacis out of the crib and then cry because he can't go to sleep without them. He likes to hold a paci when falling asleep so we have to make sure he has several to choose from in his crib. His morning nap is around 9:30 and he usually sleeps about an hour and a half to an hour and three quarters. His afternoon nap ends up being around 1:30 for about an hour to hour and a half. Luke loves to be silly at home, but out in public he's usually pretty serious. I wish everyone could see his happy silly side because he's just so much fun.

Micah is so close to walking. We keep thinking we're about to see his first step. On one hand I don't really want to encourage it because I know things will become more difficult with him walking, but on the other hand it's an exciting time. I just hope he waits for that first step when his Daddy is home to see it too. He's very proficient with cruising around furniture, pulling himself up on anything and everything, speed-crawling, and letting go while standing. Micah's gotten quite picky about meals. He's not really excited to eat pureed food off a spoon anymore. Or maybe it depends on the food. His favorite finger foods lately are bagels with cream cheese, freeze dried fruit, cheerios, and anything from my plate (which isn't very often). We're still struggling with sippy cups. He's managed to get them to work a few times, but not consistently. I think I need to try a different kind of cup. I've spend a couple weeks trying to get him to drink from a regular straw, but he'd rather play with the straw. We have a measuring cup in the bathtub for them to play with. He likes to hold the handle and drink the bath water out of the cup. Grosses me out. We've been working on baby sign language and he's pretty good with "all done" now. He can definitely do it if we model it for him and sometimes he'll do it if we just say the words. I don't think he really completely understands what it means. Micah takes a 4-5 ounce bottle every four hours during the day and wakes once or twice at night to eat. He still breastfeeds at night. We try to put him to bed around 7:30 pm and he usually wakes up between 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning. Usually Luke wakes up first and I try to get Micah up within at least 30 minutes of Luke, if not less if it's closer to 8:00. He naps for about 1 1/2 hours in the morning around 9:30-11, and then 1-1 1/2 hours in the afternoon starting around 1:30. The boys usually play and chatter for a little bit before going to sleep. Micah has gotten pretty good about going to sleep on his own, though occasionally he'll start crying instead of going to sleep. It's unusual enough that I go in and hold him for a bit, which usually does the trick. Bedtime is a little more challenging. About half the time he'll fall asleep during his bedtime bottle and do just fine going to bed and sleeping for a good chunk of time. Other times he is awake when we put him to bed and he'll cry and cry and cry. I think it may just be that he's still hungry and we don't realize it. The last couple times that's happened I've given him more formula and he's been fine after that. Mental note for next time!! Micah definitely has a lot of energy, but he's also a cuddle bug still. He's pretty loud and energetic, kind of like his father. He's the one that will smile for strangers when we're out and about. He loves the attention.

I'm loving my life. I really wish the boys were sleeping through the night, but really, most days it's not that bad. I enjoy watching them play, especially now that they are playing together more. And it's so fun hearing them jabbering away in their room when they are supposed to be going to sleep or are waking up. Speaking of jabbering away, I hear them now, so I guess I better get them up.