Our little baby has blossomed into an incredible little boy
over the past eleven months. It brings us such joy to watch him
getting along so easily with others, giggling and playing peek-a-boo.
His curiosity is insatiable and he doesn't shy away from risks. He's
in every drawer, turning over every pile, tasting everything he finds
on the ground; he scales the stairs, climbs onto chairs, crawls into
water, and stands unsupported drumming wildly on the walls.Eko has been practicing different modes of communication this month. Although not always on queue, he'll wave "hello" to anyone – his parents, total strangers, even animals. He's begun to clap, often when he hears music, especially his favorite Belefonte hits. One night, while eating blueberries with his grandpa Gary, he even put his fists together to tell us he wanted "more."
Our applause confused him, turning his baby sign into clapping
instead, but he clearly associates the action with the word and will clap with
fists or open palms to ask for more food. Spontaneously, he discovered how to make a trilling sound by twiddling his lips with his
fingers. For days he would trill anytime we started and he enjoys twiddling our lips, too.
He now happily
chases bits of food around his high chair, mashing them into his
mouth with all fingers, or diving face-first to lick food right off
the tray. Occasionally he'll offer a few spoonfuls to mommy and
daddy. With his love of blueberries, (due perhaps to the thousands of
blueberries Jade ate while pregnant), 
we brought him to the Green
Mountain Orchard to pick them straight from the bush. At first we
would squeeze them into his mouth, but now he can gulp them down if
we break them into pieces. We enjoy introducing Eko to a variety of
foods and discovered that he likes Indian and Mexican food, as well
as potato gnocci. This increase in solid foods has made him less
reliant on the bottle, but when “boo” is available he still
nurses eagerly.
It's fascinating to watch Eko gain more control over his body.
Some moves are carefully practiced for days, while others seem to
manifest out of nowhere. His crawl has been getting steadily faster
over the summer and he climbs to a standing position using anything
he can find for support. He is always looking up for the next level
to climb onto. He practices squatting down from a standing position,
and, 
after many head bonks, can catch himself with his hands when he
falls. After one too many face-plants, he's begun to lower himself from a
raised surface by spinning around on his tummy and going feet-first. And we've now learned that a perfect downward dog is a signal for us to prepare to change a poopy diaper.
Our little guy continues to be quite the social butterfly. He
loves visiting mama and daddy at work and being tickled and ogled by
all of their coworkers. He enjoyed showing off for Nick and his band,
the Durians, when they visited us from NYC. He discovered he had the
power to make them mimic him waving both hands in the air and wowed
them with his lip trilling. We waved farewell to our friends Ben,
Bridget, and Bella, who moved back to Wisconsin to be near family. On
their final night east, we gathered with Junio, Katie, and Jubilee,
eating Thai food and goofing off at a local playground. 
Eko had
three-month old Sierra in hysterics when we visited Jess for lunch
and showed Haley and Marley how he can hold his breath under water at
Spofford Lake. Our friend Elise stopped by to meet Eko on her way
around the country and Dalia played diaper hide-and-seek with Eko
(rules: place clean cloth diaper on Eko's head. Next, place another diaper on
your head. Find each other behind the diapers while giggling hysterically. Repeat two hundred times.)
We took Eko on his first family vacation to Ogunquit, Maine, where we
stayed at the Meadowmere Resort, the same place we spent our Babymoon
when Jade was 23 weeks pregnant. Eko loved crawling around the room,
climbing the step to our private jacuzzi, and pulling all of his
clothes out of his dresser drawer. We played in the resort's
indoor pool as often as we could and Eko got his first taste of the
Atlantic Ocean on a beach with very long, shallow waves. The
moment we put him down on the sand, he crawled right in, splashing in
the increasingly higher waves until they became too high for his
liking. He got a little upset when the cold water began pushing him
around and lapping his face, but he loved crawling all over the sand
(and eating a lot of it, too).
Unfortunately, while leaving a restaurant on our second night,
Jade twisted her right foot on a step, tumbled forward clutching Eko,
and landed on her knee on a stone walkway. Eko fell the last few inches,
but her knee took the full force of the fall and he was fine after a
good cry. Jade was so terrified he'd been hurt that she didn't even notice
how banged up she was for several minutes. 
The three of us spent most
of that night in the York Hospital ER for x-rays, stitches, and
strict orders not to hold the baby while standing. With Jade off her
feet, daddy took Eko to the York Zoo on our last day. With wide and
curious eyes, Eko watched the monkeys swing, goats nibble his toes,
and lions pace back and forth, though in all honestly he was a little
more interested in watching bees than lions. In the deer feeding
area, he attempted to shoo away a deer from the pile of pellets daddy
spread in front of him.
Thank you to everyone who offered to help our family while Jade
was recuperating. We're especially grateful that grandpa Gary was
able to spend a few nights with us. With her stitches out and her
infection fought, she's now back to carrying Eko around and upstairs
again. After six nights, she was finally able to put him to bed. He
snuggled with grateful relief to be back to normal. It was a scary
experience, but Eko's built solid and strong—in eleven months he's become one tough
little guy. 
