Baby is disappearing...

...and being replaced by a boy!  He is eleven months old.  

My little baby who used to go to bed at 6:30 is now busy taking apart our house until 8 or 9.  He plays hard and he sleeps hard.  If he wants to get up before us, he wiggles his little body out of the bed and onto the floor feet first.  Then he takes off and does his rounds.  Rounds in the bedroom consist of inspecting the mushroom nightlight. scratching the lamp shade, cruising around the bed, moving the alarm clock onto the floor, and then crawling out into the hallway to see if there is any danger to be had out there.  

Rounds in the living room consist of spreading out the Everyday Food magazines on the floor, spreading out the coasters, taking coasters off of another shelf and chewing on them, crawling over to his exercauser and hitting the buttons until a song plays (much prefers the songs over the animal noises), and so on.  He's just always very busy.  Much as we think he makes messes, he must think we're always moving his things.  

He loves the dogs' water bowl, daddy's beer bottle, and everything in the refrigerator and everything in my bathroom.  He throws big fits when we take these things away from him.  

This month he's started taking these monster 1.5 to 2 hour naps.  He never ever did that before.  And though it's probably more information than you'd like to know, he's also pooping all by himself--free of any and all medicinal intervention.  We are very proud parents.  

He's still fairly bald but is beginning to have enough hair that it can get messy.  

We've decided to go ahead and declare him left-handed.  He's seemed to favor his left for months now, but it's become really undeniable.  I guess that means we'll have to get some of those green handled scissors for him one day.  

Since I went back to work after New Year's, he's been taking fewer ounces of breast milk during the day.  I will not be sad when I can stop pumping at work (not stop nursing at home). 

He used to take pacifiers with Kenny when he slept.  He's lost interest in those--except for using them as the occasional chew toy.  He does often suck on his thumb--particularly after being picked up.  Really, he uses his thumb as Sherlock Holmes used his pipe--in a contemplative manner.

His vocabulary (if you can calls sounds that aren't really words a vocabulary) has exploded this month. Until recently he was seeming pretty content with the grunts and squeals.  He's begun to have entire conversations in gibberish though.  You never know when he's going to start yammering, but I love it when he does.  There was definitely a "ma" sound somewhere in his monologue yesterday.

In his opinion, the funniest thing we do is tell him "un uh."  He cackles and tosses his head back--but half the time he will stop doing what we're trying to get him to stop doing, so that's something. 

My baby boy fell asleep on me about an hour and a half ago.  I should probably take us both to bed now.