Garrett - 11 Months Old

Diapers

Still in size 3’s.   He’s in that weird stage where he fits into 3’s as well as 4’s.  We’ll just keep buying 3’s for now.

**First time riding in the car buggie at Publix happened this month**

Shoe Size

He is just now beginning to wear shoes.  I haven’t gotten his feet sized yet, just letting him wear Carter’s old shoes.  They seem to fit for now.

Clothes

9 months.  12 month stuff is too big so he’s still rocking 9 month onesies/shirts/jeans.  And yes, he finally wears jeans.  They make him look like such a big boy in my opinion!!

Feeding/Solids

Still rocking the sippy cups.  Can’t remember the last time he drank from a bottle.  He still struggles to lift his hands in the air when he’s only got about 1/4 of his formula left so I usually have to lift up his hands for him so he can get that last little bit.  Some days he kind of transitions to 3 meals on his own instead of 4.  Most days he drink his formula and cereal for breakfast, formula and some kind of lunch solid food, formula again after his second nap and then dinner and formula again right before bed.  But some days he skips the formula at night before bed because he’s so full from the other stuff. 

He pretty much eats everything.  Literally.  He’s always taking bits and pieces of things me and Justin eat and he’s never not liked or spit out anything.  Kid loves food.  I have to keep reminding myself to vary up his foods so that he doesn’t become a picky eater.  That’s what ended up happening with Carter.  Carter is a much better eater now, but around age 2, I stopped making foods if he didn’t like it because I hated wasting food and then he never liked it because I never offered it.  I can’t make that mistake with Garrett so I do my best to switch up his foods frequently.

**These pictures are from school.  They have a fun little contraption that they call the “bye bye bus” that holds all the kids so that they can go outside and walk around the parking lot.  Garrett loves it!**

Schedule

For the most part, he’s still doing a 4 hour schedule of feed, wake, sleep.  This means he takes 2 naps a day that last anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours each.  Sadly, he doesn’t have 2 naps quite as much as I would want.  On Sundays and the three days a week that he goes to school, he usually only has 1 long nap that’s about 2-3 hours long.  I don’t want that to become the normal because he still needs two naps at his age, but some things you just can’t avoid.  He usually wakes up for the day around 8am and his first nap is around 10:30.  He wakes from that around 12:30 or 1 and then takes another nap around 2:30 and sleeps till about 4 and then stays awake until bedtime around 7-7:30.

**This is our church directory picture **

Sleep

Still the best little sleeper ever.  12+ hours at night and two naps that are about 2 hours each, or 1 long nap that’s 3 hours.

Waketime

He does all kinds of things during waketime.  Sometimes he runs errands with me, sometimes we ride the golfcart, sometimes we sit outside or take walks around the neighborhood.  But most of the time he plays in his playroom with an insane amount and variety of toys.  He is not very interested in tv.  Carter use to LOVE watching Baby Einstein at this age.  Garrett will watch it but only in the car.  He’s shaping up to be just like Carter and only watch TV when strapped into a seat.

Mother’s Day Out

Still doing great at school.  He rarely cries at drop off but he always cries when I pick him up.  I haven’t quite figured that out.  He sees me and immediately starts crying.  I kind of think he’s just so happy to see me and is hoping I don’t leave again and that I actually take him home.   He got pretty sick this month and had to miss one day.  He had been showing signs of illness for a while but I was hesitant to take him and pay $40 for them to tell me that he had a cold and that there’s nothing he can take (that’s happened to me a few times).  Well when it didn’t get better and particularly when I noticed that he basically stopped drinking his formula, I took him in to see a doc.  Turns out he had a stomach virus, ear infection, was dehydrated, all on top of teething and cutting 4 teeth at the same time in his top gums.  It was like the perfect storm.  He got a lot of medicine and finally started drinking again.  The doc told us that if he didn’t begin drinking more the next day that they wanted to admit him and give him fluids via IV.  Praise the Lord he started drinking because I don’t know any mama that could watch her 10 month old receiving fluids at the hospital.  It took several days to get him back to normal again. 

**His teacher sent me this picture of him sleeping at school.  Almost a year old and still sucks on those two fingers upside down!!!**

Statistics

No 11 month appointment but he weighed in at 19lbs, 9oz and I was able to measure him about 29 inches tall.  This puts him in the 25th percentile for weight (clearly some weight loss has been going on due to the sickness he had where he basically didn’t eat for a week and a half and all the extra calories burned by moving so much) and 50th percentile for height.  These are obviously rough estimates.  I will know more exact numbers at his 12 month appointment that is scheduled for October 30th.

Abilities

Trying so hard to get him to walk!!!  Carter took his first steps the day after he turned 11 months old.  Garrett has been consistently behind Carter on the milestones, but not usually by far.  Hoping Garrett will start walking soon.  He walks with a walker all the time.  It’s one of his favorite things to do.  He just hasn’t mustered the courage to do it on his own just yet.  He also learned to wave this month.  He does it all the time too.  He can now say Papa and Bye Bye.  He came close to saying Nana.  One day, Carter gave him one of his cars (the car is from the movie Cars and her name is Sally) and when Garrett took it from Carter he said “Sa”.  I think he really was trying to say Sally.  This makes me happy because even though he can’t say all the things he hears me say, I know he is listening and can recognize names of objects and people, even though he can’t say it on his own yet.

Teething

Those top 4 teeth finally came in so we’re up to 6 teeth.  Haven’t noticed any other teeth coming through at this point.

Discipline

When I tell him “no” the most is when he is getting on the fireplace, playing in Gizmo’s water bowl, standing up in the bathtub or slamming his hands on the table during a meal.   Still just saying no and removing him to distract him.  We’ll start very small timeouts after his first birthday.

**Daddy thought that, instead of teaching little man to not stand up in the bathtub because he may slip and fall and get hurt, it would be a better idea to just pad him up head to toe with spoungy bath letters to keep him from getting too injured.  My husband thinks he’s hilarious.**

Birthday Planning

I can’t believe it’s already time for this!!!  Garrett’s invitations have been mailed out and I am already planning things for the big day.  His party will be before his actual birthday.  He turns 1 on October 27th but I am having his birthday party on October 23rd.  It’s a Friday night.  I struggled with this as most moms do that have fall babies in the south.  Football season.  I could have had it on Saturday, but to be honest, I don’t want people glued to the tv while at his party.  Not to mention we have some intense Bama and Auburn fans in our family and getting them in the same room on gameday just didn’t seem like a good idea.  Justin leaves on Sunday to go out of town so we decided to have it on a Friday night.  Naturally, it will be Halloween themed.

Other Notable Things

Likes

• Sleeping
• Balls.  He loves to chase balls around
• Cars.  He enjoys playing with Carter’s little hot wheels cars almost as much as Carter does.
• Washer and Dryer.  He loves to climb up and touch it and watch clothes spin around inside.
• He really likes it when you hold him upside down and blow on his tummy.  He loves it!
• Baths.  LOVES LOVES LOVES baths.  He also loves to attempt to stand up and touch the spout.  As well as pulling at the stopper.   I think he’s trying to figure out how it works.  What’s funny is when he tries to play with the stopper while the bath water is still running…which means his head gets soaked.  It definitely takes him by surprise!
• Right now he loves crawling into our master bathroom and going through the bottom drawer and pulling out everything he has in it.
• Walking with his walker

Dislikes

• If you put him in the middle of a room and walk away, he will be fine.  But if you’re within eye sight, he will cry because he wants you down there with him.  It’s the funniest thing.  We’ve tested this theory several times and the result is always the same.  If he even spots you around a corner, the flood gates open and the tears start falling. 
• Being kept awake for too long .
• Rocking-I’ve tried so many times to rock this kid and he just won’t have it.  He would rather you just put him in the bed and leave him alone.
• Having his nose wiped
• When you take too long to feed him.  My garbage disposal needs his food fast!