The Hintons: 11 Months

This has been another crazy month with so much change! Will has really taken off and is learning new things every day. It makes me so proud and brings me so much satisfaction to watch him grow.

Will has learned how to clap this last month. Whenever he does something good, I'll clap and tell him good job. Then he gets really excited and starts to clap too.

Clapping

One of Will's new favorite games while eating is to pick up his food, lean over the edge of his high chair tray, and watch his food fall to the ground as he drops it. I've learned that this is a sign that he is done and isn't interested in eating any more. And no matter what I do, he just giggles and continues to do it until I take all the food off of his tray.

One of Will's favorite finger foods is vegetables. I buy the frozen vegetable medley that has carrots, corn, peas, and green beans. He always eats the green beans first, then the peas, leaving all the yellow and orange food behind. If I scoop the remaining vegetables up on a spoon, he'll eat them, but he wont pick them up himself.

Notice he's picked out all of the green vegetables.

Some of Will's favorite foods this month are mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, tater tots, vegetables, bananas, and noodles (with either spaghetti sauce or alfredo sauce).

Want my tater tot?

Will is such a little copycat. Anything you do, he will try to do it. It has made it so much fun and I love taking advantage of it.

Yesterday he had spilled a bag of raisins all over. So I decided to see if I could get him to copy me cleaning it up. Sure enough, as I showed him to pick them up and put them back in the bad, he started doing it to. He thought it was so fun that once it was all cleaned up, we had to dump it back out to do it again. I got a video of it, but it says there is an error when I try to upload it. :(

I took Will to the park last week and he had a pretty good time climbing and playing in the tubes. His favorite is still swinging, but he also enjoyed climbing around.

He's getting pretty good with his cups and he is learning that you have to tilt them back in order to get anything to drink.

Will now has a few little "tricks". Here are a few examples: If you put your hand up, he will give you a high five. If you say "touchdown!" and put your hands up, he will do it also. And he will clap if you start clapping.

He can't do "touchdown" without making a goofy face.

We didn't buy much in Hawaii, but we figure we needed to get Will something. We thought this shirt would look great on him.

One of his molars came in and the other is currently in the process of cutting. I've heard many horror stories of teething babies, but he is surprising mellow. Yes he is crankier than usual, but it's still really not that terrible. (Most of the time.)

He is definitely at that stage of getting into everything.

Will took his first official step at eleven months (to the day). He was standing a few feet away from me, then he took a step. Lance and I then spent a few minutes trying to get him to walk between us. At one point he took 2 steps, but he wasn't too interested. It'll come soon enough. I'm in no hurry to rush it along.

He absolutely loves to climb stairs. And my mom did a pretty good job of teaching him how to come back down. If he is on the stairs, he will slide down backwards. However, if he is at the very top, he doesn't know how to turn around and come down. It doesn't help that the stairs in our apartment are unusually steep. I'm sure he'd have an easier time if they were normal.

Will's currently obsessed with crawling over things, especially people. If you are sitting on the ground, he has to crawl over your legs. He refuses to go around, even though most of the time he ends of face planting.

Eyes something he wants then he climbs over to get it

Every time we have to change his diaper, he acts like its the end of the world. He will kick, scream, roll and try to get away. Its rare when I can get it changed without a fuss.

During this last month, Will had his first night away from mom and dad. And it wasn't just one night! Will stayed with my mom for 10 nights and he did so good! He slept through the night most nights, which is better than he was doing at home.

My mom said that Will would play pat-a-cake and clap and roll it, but I have yet to see it. He probably only does it for her or something.

Will throws EVERYTHING. As I am writing this, he just threw Lance's cell phone at his face. It's hard to teach this young that it's ok to throw balls but not other things. But he loves to play catch and will sit there and throw the ball to you. Or he'll even throw it, fetch it himself, then throw again. It's a great way for him to entertain himself for a bit.

He usually tightens up and makes a funny face as he's getting ready to throw.

If you couldn't tell from the first picture, Will also got his first major haircut this month. For the whole story and pictures, click here.

Another of his favorite games is peek-a-boo. If you put something over his face, he'll sit there until you say "Where's Will?" Then he'll rip it off and start laughing. Then he'll hide his face again and repeat. It's funny because sometimes when he's "hiding his face" he only has one eye covered.

He always has the biggest smile when he pulls the blanket off.

Looks like we need to find another obstacle to prevent Will from climbing the stairs. This worked for a few weeks, but he's trying to hard to get around/over it.