ELEVEN MONTHS OLD.

I feel like I write this every month, but it really does feel like I was just writing Patrick's 10 month blog post, and now, just a month shy of his first birthday, I am writing his ELEVEN month blog post.  Seriously, how did 11 months go by so fast?  I mean, I feel like I blinked, and my little 10-pound baby is now this crawling-getting-into-everything-smiley-personality-beaming-little boy.  Kenny Chesney was absolutely right: Don't Blink.

I said it the past couple months and I'll say it again: these monthly pictures are NOT getting easier to take.  They are actually getting infinitely harder.  This month, my lovely little 11-month old ripped (ahhh!) his sticker off and then drooled on it, so I was just shy of getting to reuse these awesome Cardinals monthly stickers for the next kid.  Dang.  Oh well.  Anyways, he is so squirmy and wanting to explore and get into everything, that to get him to sit still for the amount of time it takes me to snap a picture is asking a lot.  This month I tried to get him to focus by having Baby Einstein playing on his iPad behind me while I snapped.  Ehh, I guess it worked.  The perfectionist in me wants perfect pictures every single month, the realist sees that that won't ever happen, so I'm happy with how they turned out because it definitely represents his fiesty little personality.

"Get this sticker offa me mom!"

Here are some noteworthy happenings of the past month of Patrick's life, because, everyone likes baby milestone updates, right?!

• Little man is staying consistent: he gained about another pound since his 10 month stats: he's weighing in at an even 25 pounds now.  CHUNKKKK.  This doesn't surprise me cause he eats like crazy and a lot of his 18 month size clothes no longer fit.
• He's still in 18-24 month clothes, but as I said last month, the 18 month are a little snug (especially length-wise) so we usually go with 24 month/2T clothes.  I did get him some summer outfits in 2T--hoping I don't regret that and he stays in his current size through the summer.  He tends to wear bigger pants/shorts because of his fluffy bum (a.k.a. huge cloth diaper booty).
• Still has 6 teeth!  No new toothies popped through this month, and I'm actually glad about that.  Not that we've had any issues with teething (thus far), but gives his little mouth a break.  And the past couple weeks he hasn't been wearing his amber teething anklet--not because we've "stopped" it, but because it was super tight on his little ankle and mom-of-the-year here hasn't ordered him a bigger size one yet.  Which, as I type this, I'm opening a new tab to remind myself to order one after I finish.
• No more bottles!  Woo hoo!!  If you remember my sippy cup post from a few weeks back I said how we ditched the bottles--well, almost 2+ weeks later we haven't gone back.  I can safely say all of those Dr. Browns bottles and their thousand pieces are tucked away in our basement until the next kid.  And, side note, I'm still peeved off about my breastmilk disaster.  I'm sure it's gonna take a long while for me to get over that.
• Dude is an eating machine: he's really loving his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He goes crazy when he's in his high chair and he knows food is coming--like all out nuts: flapping his arms, screaming, and wailing all over the place.  It's pretty funny.  He eats oatmeal and fruit for breakfast (after an 8oz. organic whole milk + toddler formula sippy cup), about 12 oz. of fruit, veggies, and meat for lunch, another 12-15 oz. of fruit, veggies, and meat for dinner, and another 8 oz. of milk before bed time.  He still is eating the pureed baby food, but we're starting to give him the food off of our plate too so he's not just getting the pureed food anymore.
• Still crawling around like crazy.  Until Monday, he really wasn't pulling up on anything.  Our awesome Parents as Teachers lady came and I told her this--and she noticed it too.  He does this kneel-standing thing where he's kneeling on one leg and standing up on the other.  Doesn't really grab anything to get into this position--it actually seems like he prefers not to hang on to anything!  Well, of course a couple hours after he left BOOM!  He's pulling up--and he did it like 5 times.  Pulled himself up to standing while holding onto my shoulders, or hands, or the side of his baby corral.  WHAT. THE. HECK.  Seriously.  I think he totally knew we were dissing on him not doing this WHILE SHE WAS HERE then he was like, "I'll show you mom" and started pulling up.  Either way, I'm happy he's finally starting to be interested in standing and supporting his own weight beneath his feet.
• Still sleeping like a champ.  A good 12+ hours at night, and one 3-4 hour nap during the day.  And boy, you can definitely tell when he's tired or hungry: dude is crankyyyyyy.  But still has no problems going to sleep on his own or self-soothing himself to sleep--we are so very thankful for this!
• We are starting to see a bit of separating issues with him: lately when we set him down in his play corral or walk out of the room, he starts whining and (fake) crying.  It usually lasts only a minute or so, but this is definitely something he's never done before.  It does make me happy that he wants me (or Mike) to be there with him, so it doesn't bother me too much when he's upset that I walk out of the room: reminds me that he loves his mama :)
• Had some big outings this month: Patrick went to the St. Louis Zoo for the first time and to the park!  I think he had a blast at both places, and since then, we've tried to go to the park as much as we can (dude loves the swings!)--but with the silly cold weather lately, we haven't gone as much as I'd like.  However, hoping that now with the warmer week we're having weather-wise it'll stay and we can make park trips happen after school daily!

Well, that's about it for month eleven for Patrick.  I can't believe next month will be my last formal blog post like this!  I mean, I'll still blog about his milestones and what he's up to, but it definitely won't be monthly like this.  Ahhhh, time, you suck.  With that said, I'm going to savor every second I have with my not-yet-one-year-old this coming month.

Oh, and here's my obligatory collage photos for Patrick's 11 months of life.  Enjoy!  (side note: I've had to resort to creating custom collage layouts because there are just too many pictures now! :)