11 Months

11 months...excuse me, rewind please.  I'm not yet ready for another month come and gone and another month closer to one.  I'm squarely in denial.  Despite my want to slow things down, time is marching on and you are growing.  And, as you are getting bigger, stronger our hearts are growing too.  Growing more full of love, understanding, patience and awe of the little person you are becoming.

These days things are busy.  And you, my dear son, are busy too.  Busy in every sense of the word. You leave nothing untouched, unexplored.  You can cover a lot of ground in a very short period of time and virtually nothing will hold your attention for more than a minute.  Sometimes not even that long.  You are curious and like to test.  You have no fear and do everything full force; there is no hesitation.

If I didn't know better I would swear you are part monkey.  You love to climb and it doesn't take you long to scale the stairs, any piece of furniture where you can find a way to boost yourself up and just the other day I found you on top of the toilet.  You used Carmen's step stool and pulled yourself up.  The toilet!  I can't fathom where we will find you next.  Your current favorite thing to do is climb onto the small kid-sized chairs, then climb onto the table, stand on the table, and play with the window handle and bang on the window screen.  Um, this activity is not so safe. We've tried countless tactics to stop you but how you howl.  If you do not get what you want or we take you away from something, look out.  The wailing begins and it is loud, loud, loud.  Big tears.  It's kind of funny because if we put you back or give you back what we took away, it stops immediately and all is right with the world again.  Apparently you have us trained and know that we can't listen to you protest for too long.

All of this climbing is getting you closer and closer to walking and just yesterday you stood by yourself, unassisted for the first time.  It won't be long now until you are taking off and cruising on your feet instead of crawling on your bare knees (yes, still not wearing pants very frequently). 

Your hair continues to grow and continues to stick straight up and little curls are starting to form in the back. This may just be the best conversation starter yet.  It's not just one comment a day anymore, but usually several.  "Wow, look at that hair!"  "Do you style it?"  "I've never seen such hair."  "His hair sure is fuzzy."  And on, and on.  I love it.  It's soft and fluffy and very blonde.  It's impossible to pat down so I just let it do it's thing.  I'm hoping that once it grows a little longer it will calm down on it's own but for now, it's perfect just the way it is.

And you are perfect too.  Your smile, the way you make a mess when you eat, the way you love to be held upside down, your strong personality, the way you run me into the ground by how busy and into everything you are.  I wouldn't change a thing.