11 Months

Happy 11 months to Ethan!  It has been filled with learning to walk, babbling in conversational tones, and lots and lots of play time.

Last post I mentioned Ethan was in a funky mode for week or so and I am happy to say he's getting back to his normal laughing, walking, talking self.  

A fun development this month is that Ethan understands language enough now that he can follow simple directions we ask of him - open and closing things, getting the ball, rolling it to me, etc.  

His babble is sounding more and more like a real conversation (often Ethan having both sides of the conversation).   He is definitely trying to communicate to me through sound.  I think he is so close to his first words.  He can say Ma for Malley and Da for Dad.   Poor Mom gets nothing but grunts and whines...

I am starting to notice that Ethan is starting to slow down on putting every little thing he touches in his mouth, yea!  He still puts a lot of things in there, but now he'll usually look or play with it for a few minutes first.  

Play is starting to look like games and make believe than just random grabbing objects and chewing on them.  He likes to walk around and put things places, talking the whole time, or  rolls around on the ground with his blanket laughing like they have a secret game going on.  

As Ethan gets older I am finding more things to take him to expand his world.  Our favorites are the Imaginarium at the museum, the swimming pool, storytime at the library.  As the snow melts we can add running around the parks and going to the zoo!

Here's a video of Ethan talking to himself in the mirror...one of his new favorite things to do.  

Springs storms are moving through Alaska right now - lots of cloudy days and snow.  The winds were so bad this morning that it blew a tree over in our yard (onto our garden, but luckily not our house!).  This guy stood over 45 ft tall and came down with a huge bang.