Ryan - Month 11

As Ryan got dangerously close to being a whole year old, he had some fun 11-month adventures.  A quick recap:

• Putting lids on is his new "thing."  Anything with a screw top, he is all over.  Water bottles are his specialty, and since I have them with me most of the time, he gets a lot of practice.  I hand him the lid, he puts it back onto the bottle, and then I cheer for him while he beams.  Remove the lid.  Repeat.  We play this until one of us (me) gets tired of it and stops.  But his hand-eye coordination is getting so good!  It used to take him a few fumbled attempts to play The Lid Game, as we call it, but now he can get it in one shot.
• A cute one this month - he started reaching for things and people that he wants.  He stretches out his little arm and hand towards whatever it is that he wants, and then wiggles his fingers in a "come here" motion until we give him what he's reaching for.  We call it his soliloquy hand since he looks like he's in a Shakespeare drama while he reaches :)

To be, or not to be...

• The toys of the month: Quad copter, the shape sorter and cars.  Matt got the quad copter (a little remote controlled helicopter) for Christmas "for Ryan" even though the box said ages 13 and up.  Well I shouldn't have been so skeptical because it turns out Ryan loves that thing.  He loves to watch it fly and land in Matt's hand and do flips.  When Matt starts putting on the Baby Bjorn carrier at home, Ryan has learned that it is quad copter time and will fast and furious crawl to Matt to get strapped in for the fun. The shape sorter is a little wooden toy with colorful shape blocks that fit in to coordinating slots on a base.  Some of the shapes are harder than others, but he is a pro at the cylinder and the hexagon for now.  And then cars.  I think it must be wired in his little boy DNA, but that kid loves everything with wheels.  And he will push them around the floor making a vrooming raspberry noise with his lips all day.  Precious.

Reading with Dad

• We finally found a food that Ryan did not immediately love in good ol' broccoli.  Matt and I were having some broccoli with dinner one night, and I typically just share whatever I am eating with Ryan.  I gave him a small piece of the flowery top, and he popped it in his mouth... then made the sourest face I've ever seen.  He kept trying to chew it around in his mouth, but was not looking happy about it, so I finally coaxed him to spit it out if he didn't like it.  He spit it out, but then decided to give it one more try.  Still awful.  This time, he pulled it out of his mouth, looked at it, and then smiled and tried to offer it to me to eat.  Nice try, kid.  Finally he literally forced himself to eat one piece but you could tell it was paining him and he was not enjoying it, so we didn't even offer him any more.  Since then, he has changed his stance on broccoli and will now eat it with no issues, but that first try was so funny Matt and I were in stitches!

• Ryan also started honing his walking skills this month by practicing with his walk-behind Lion toy.  It is a cute little baby walker that plays music while you're using it to encourage the baby to keep walking.  He can push it from one side of his play room to the other with no problem, but still hasn't figured out turning around.  So either we have to stand by and keep flipping him around, or he will just walk around to the other side and push it back across the room backwards.  

Next up is the 1-year milestone post, followed by some super cute pics from his first birthday party :)