Kaden 11 Months

I have been in no hurry to help Kaden learn to walk.  He started pushing himself up to standing and letting go so he was standing all alone.  He would smile and thought it was pretty cool.  I wasn’t so thrilled.  Because he started doing it right after he got stitches at 10 months.  But all my other kids were walking before their birthday, at least a few weeks before if I remember correctly.  Sadie was way earlier.  So I figured I would give Kaden the chance to learn if he wanted to.  But I am certainly not looking forward to him toddling around.

So I pulled out the little walker that we’ve had since Kylee was like 9 months old.  I gave it to my other kids earlier.  It’s not like I was withholding it trying to keep him from walking.  I just hadn’t thought about it because it was stored up in the garage.  So I grabbed it and I hosed it down and I brought it in.  I put Kaden behind it and he grabbed the handle and took off!  He looked like he knew exactly what he was doing.  And he smiled and giggled the whole time.  It was adorable.  He’s now taking three-four steps towards us when we set him up and encourage him.  I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s all over the place.

He’s a pretty great baby.  Sure, he likes to get into trouble.  If there is a cabinet slightly ajar, he will open it and see what he can get into.  He’s learned to open cabinet doors so we have to be careful.  We’ve put a chair in front of the stairs to prevent him from tumbling down, and so far it works.  Thank goodness.  Because we don’t have a gate.

He naps one good nap a day and another shorter one usually.  Sometimes, usually because of me and my busy schedule, he doesn’t get a good nap in the morning/afternoon so he takes a longer nap a little later.  He goes to bed around 9 and wakes up sometime between 7-8 in the morning.  He loves his pacifier and blanket.  He will wake up in his crib, find a pacifier sitting ether, pop it in and just roll around and cuddle with his blanket for awhile instead of crying out for us.

I was still nursing four times a day at 11 months.  But more recently I have decided I should probably cut back to three, if not just two.  To do that, I have to get him to nap without nursing him to sleep.  He’s a good baby, but I hadn’t tried just setting him down for naps.  So I tried it this week.  He screamed for like a minute, then he cuddled his blanket and fell asleep.  So that’s what we’ve been doing now.  It even worked on his later nap the one day he was really tired.  He doesn’t fall asleep in our arms as easily as he used to so it’s much better to just lay him down when he’s obviously tired.

The one midday nursing I’ve been doing isn’t going so great.  He’s not sleepy like he used to be because it’s after his nap.  So he often nibbles and plays, which hurts!  I get mad and tell him “no”.  He doesn’t understand why I’m mad during our bonding/nursing time and he cries.  It’s not so fun.  If it continues that way for long, I will be cutting out that feeding and we will stick with morning and night for as long as he or I decide to.

He LOVES food!  Real people food.  I mean, he likes baby food too.  And snacks.  Sometimes.  Occasionally he will not eat his snack, but just pull all the crackers out and drop them around himself in his carseat or wherever.  But when we feed him what we are eating for dinner, he eats a ton!  He loves breakfast foods too.  He likes eggs, mac n cheese, pancakes, chicken, beef, smoked salmon.  Anything we are eating, he wants.  ESPECIALLY my protein shakes in the morning.  He won’t stop begging for them.  He’s obsessed.

I even gave him a sip of my shake when it had peanut butter in it.  I didn’t think about it at first, but then I remembered this study I read about saying that keeping foods away from kids could actually increase their risk of developing an allergy.  Assuming they didn’t have a real, genetic allergy to it already.  Well, he didn’t react so I guess he doesn’t have a peanut allergy.  He’s had more peanut butter since then, in granola bars and more smoothies.  Call me a rebel.  He’s also had strawberries, oranges, and pineapple and he’s never shown any signs of problems as far as diaper rash or mouth rash or anything else.  I remember Kylee couldn’t have berries or she got the worst diaper rash.  Even just a sip of my jamba juice gave her a horrible rash!  But Kaden has tolerated everything we’ve given him, with the exception of the yogurt a few months ago.  I tried whole milk yogurt and he spit up a lot.  I’m not positive it was the yogurt, but it wasn’t worth testing again.  Dairy is such a high allergy/sensitivity food, why bother.  In fact, I’m not sure I want to give him milk at all.  I usually switch my kids to cow’s milk after nursing, but I don’t think it’s really necessary.  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll see how it goes.

I was tempted to edit out his poor scar...  But I suppose it is part of him now and there's no hiding it.  It would be weird to take it out of the pictures.