And just like that, my baby is ONE. But instead of sobbing into my coffee this morning about how fast time is going, let’s reminisce about 11-month Hudson. The thing that most stands out in my mind about 11 months is how funny he has become. This month was awesome, and I think we just laughed our way through most of it. His little expressions and antics have become so pronounced as he’s trying so very, very hard to communicate his very, very strong desires with the world. I never want to laugh at him—but the good news is that he seems to be laughing along with us too.

Talking

Hudson is a little chatterbox. Most of it is just baby babble, but this is the most notable change this month. He’s always made little peeps and squeaks, but he has quite a range of noises now that totally crack us up. He’ll switch between a yell, a squeal and polite chatter in just a few seconds and we’re just looking at him like, what just happened there?!

His ABC book is one of his favorites and I’m working on getting him to mimic a lot of the sounds of the letters or words… and he can do a LOT of them! #proudmama

His most common word is probably “mama” right now, (which feels fair since it took so, so long to come out!) but we’re working on narrowing mama down to me. He seems to know that I’m mama: if I ask him, “where’s mama?” He will point at me and poke me in the shoulder like, “you, dummy.” However, he also seems to think all photographs of people are mama, and my favorite: he pointed at the Blackhawk logo on Jason’s shirt and proudly announced, “mama!” So, we’re working on it.

The cutest word of the month was BLITZ! Jason had been working on that one with him and one morning the kitty walked by and Hudson just said, “Bitz!” So cute, I almost cried.

The funniest word is “shoes.” He picked this one up last month but it continues to be in heavy rotation (probably because we are trying to get him to say it all the time!). He says it so, so quietly and with such emphasis on the first S. It comes out like, “ssssssoos.”

I have no idea how to translate this into written word, but he sometimes does this sound that goes “a-yuk-a-yuk-a-yuk” in this low, guttural voice sometimes that is so ridiculously funny. I have NO idea where he got it from.

Standing/Walking

J’s mom tells us that he never really cared much for crawling, but basically started running one day and I can totally imagine Hudson doing the same. Though ironically, after months of his army crawl, he started crawling with his belly off the ground this month and he is so, so fast. May I never forget him speed-crawling down the hallway with a huge grin on his face to get me when I get home from work.

He’s working hard on learning to walk. He pretty much just wants to be up on his feet most of the time now, and he’ll walk around our whole condo holding my hands. He’s also gotten the hang of the walker and will push that around with abandon, which totally freaks me out because eventually it gets away from him and he falls. “A-boom-boom.” But he’s gotten pretty good at falling right.

He is also “cruising” all of our furniture, walking along the edges of the couch, the windowsills, the bar stools—whatever he can get a grip on. We walked down to the fountain the other day and he cruised all the way down the edge of the fountain. That was such a surreal moment for me—watching him walk away from me.

We also seem to have a climber on our hands: he doesn’t have much to climb in our place, but he will attempt to scale whatever we’ve got. Jason and I have found him standing on the air vent in our kitchen, clinging to a windowsill, and also standing on the low shelf of a console table, doing a sort of pull up with the top of the table. YIKES.

Blitz

Huds LOVES Blitz and when the cat has been somewhere else (which is kind of rare because he still follows us around everywhere!) and then comes back in the room, Hudson will let out a huge, happy squeal. His speed-crawling has increased his ability to get near the cat—which he will do as often as possible to give him some “pets” which are really more like… whacks. “GENTLE PETS!!!” Luckily, Blitz is still much faster than Hudson, and is also an angel and has still never so much as flexed his claws despite the fur and tail pulling. We’re still really diligent and I’d never leave them alone together, but we thank our lucky stars every day for such a patient kitty.

The Park

We’ve seen a lot of the park this month. Hudson still loves the swings, though he has a penchant for leaning forward in the swing instead of leaning back which totally freaks us out. But luckily, he’s also really interested in other parts of the park now. The sandbox is always a big winner (there is always sand EVERYWHERE, God bless the dustbuster) and he loves going down the lower slides while holding our hands. Since he’s gotten pretty good at walking while holding my hands, we do a lot of walking around the playground equipment, over the bridges and climbing up the low stairs. I have no earthly idea how moms keep their babies safe once they start running… those playgrounds look like a death trap to running babies without a sense of danger yet! So for now, I’m loving the hand holding 😃

He also has a penchant for eating wood chips, so we’re working on that 😉

Sleep

While the naps have been more erratic lately, he’s still sleeping great at night and his inconsistent daytime sleep doesn’t have much effect on his daytime mood. So mostly, we’re just rolling with it—though I have to admit I miss knowing he’ll be down for a solid hour+ so that I can get some stuff done while he’s snoozing. But, we’re making it work and as we always remind ourselves… it’s the night sleep that matters most.

Now that he’s all about standing about walking around, the crib is the perfect place to practice, which I suspect has some bearing on why he’s not sleeping as well during naps. TOO MUCH TO DO, MOM! We’ve had to rearrange his room a bit to ensure there’s nothing within reach (now I understand why so many babies rooms feature decals!) because we found him trying to a the framed picture and the Nest cam cord off the wall more than once.

Food

There actually isn’t much new to report on the food front. We introduced fish this month which he loves! He still favors cheese, meat, veggies and berries; emphasis on the cheese which he says like… “tseeeeees” ❤️ He is still NOT into carbs: waffles, toast, and grilled cheese have all been huge fails. When he doesn’t like something, he will look you dead in the eye and deliberately drop the food off the side of his high chair like, “nope.”

He does not exactly love being penned into his high chair, so sometimes mealtime can be a battle because he’d much rather be playing. It’s far easier and cleaner to feed him each bite, but I try to let him do it himself one meal a day… usually breakfast, since I’m changing him out of his jammies after that anyway. Which is key, because it is nothing short of a disaster area.

Social Life

We’ve had a pretty social month around here! (For us.) It has been SO much fun watching Hudson interact with other kids, but to be honest he still seems more into adults. We were at a friend’s half birthday party earlier in the month and he was totally hamming it up sitting in the middle of a group of mommies, all of whom happened to be blonde. I was across the room and was really impressed with his bravery at crawling so far away from me and interacting with new people—and then watched him look face to face at all of the blonde women like, nope, nope, nope—OH CRAP I LOST HER. I love him so much 😃

He also did great letting our friends hold him in Lake Geneva—though it still takes him about a day of being around someone before he’s really into letting them pick him up.

The Stroller

 

We hit a big milestone this month that I had been putting off as long as possible—I had to turn the stroller seat around. I know this seems super dramatic, but I am tearing up just writing this because I will always treasure the 11 months I had of walking around the city with him, looking at his little face. I delayed turning him around forever even though I knew he would be happier the other way with unobstructed views of the world. I just couldn’t face the end of an era! Until we were out one day and he was pretty unhappy being strapped in the stroller—and I looked around and noticed all of the other babies around me were facing out. I ripped the bandaid off and re-configured the stroller seat right there on the sidewalk before I could even think about it, and that was it. He’s definitely much happier being able to see the whole wide world but I’m now the weirdo petting his head as we walk down the street and walking around to the front of the stroller to talk to him at intersections. I suspect this is like… the tiniest example ever of moms having to let their babies grow up and if this is any indication, I’m NOT a fan of this part of motherhood!

Some other random updates in bullet form:

• Hudson is obsessed with peekaboo. He plays peekaboo in his crib, on the changing table if you give him something to hide behind, over the back of the couch with his dada, in his little play yard… everywhere. Dada does the best peekaboo—Hudson thinks it’s so, so funny when he and his dad get really into it.  Also thanks to peekaboo, he now understands the concepts of up and down!
• Hudson’s favorite toys right now are a dump truck that his gramma and papa gave him, all of his books, and his bunny that he sleeps with.

• Hudson is very into pointing at EVERYTHING right now. It’s very helpful in him communicating what he wants but very awkward when he’s pointing at his captive audiences in the elevator for 35 flights. So funny.
• Hudson is a dancing man. This is seen most often with his musical toys—he’ll get one going and then catch the beat and he’s off, doing the cutest little bounce/wiggle with a huge smile on his face. I hope he never stops!
• We’re on baby-proofing configuration #4 in our condo! We keep trying to figure out a system for keeping him safe that doesn’t make us feel totally claustrophobic and moving the baby gate we got to different areas. J and I are in major decluttering mode and are in the process of selling a bunch of furniture that no amount of baby proofing will make safe (our penchant for glass-top tables is haunting us.)

• At night, we’ll push the ottoman directly into the corner of the couch and cover it all with a blanket so he has a wide base, then sit on the edge of the ottoman to block him in… and he goes bananas. He jumps around like it’s a trampoline and wildly throws himself backwards so that he flops down onto the couch. It’s a great way to burn off energy before bed but I fear that much energy existing in such a tiny person once he gets to walking!
• He has 2/4 molars through and I can see the other two almost in! I think we’re somehow almost done with this whole teething thing!? We get a lot of comments about his whole mouth full of teeth. I obviously don’t know anything else but I think he’s been such a trooper about it all happening so fast and so early, so I’ll be glad on his behalf when it’s all done.

• His hair is coming in so fast now and is curling in the back a little. I can’t even handle it.
• This is also hard to describe in writing, but he does this “he-man” move where he clenches all of his muscles and gives a low growl. We see it most often when he’s eating, or when he’s on the changing table… meaning it could be a positive or negative reaction? Where do things like this come from?

And that’s Hudson in month 11, bringing us to a year old. I don’t know if I’ll keep these up monthly or do them every few months, but I’ve loved capturing all of the little things that make Hudson… Hudson. My smiley, sweet, rambunctious baby–who’s turned into a little boy over the course of this year.

If you’d like to look back on the rest of the year, here are my long-winded, over-caffeinated monthly updates 🙂 Somewhere in here I lost a month because I should have 12 in total now, but let’s just assume it was an early one and I’ll blame lack of sleep.

• One (Eat, Sleep, Mom)
• Two
• Three and Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight and Nine
• Ten

What a year. I would not change a thing, and even though the early days were not easy, if I could go back and do it all again, I would do it in a heartbeat to relive those quiet, snuggly days. Though I may miss the things that have come and gone in months past, I still find each month more fun than the last. Ah, Hudson. One whole year. We love you so much!