Eleven Months Old - August 15

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.

It's also been an increasingly verbal month for Eko. He occasionally produces a sound that could be 'hi' while waving and asks for 'boo' when he wants to nurse. After weeks of wondering what he was saying, we realized that Eko was speaking his first word (or phrase) – Sasha kitty-cat (da-da kee-ka). He utters it in a kind of manic whisper while chasing Sasha or when he sees a picture of her. He loves making sounds, mimicking the tones we make, and will now moo and baa whenever we read his farm books. He even repeated the word “flower" (fower) when his mommy pointed one out to him in our garden.

Eko has become much more interested in trying new foods. Along with his daily intake of yogurt, he will now eat baby food purees without a fuss. He especially likes to feed himself, dipping this spoon into the bowl and, after mashing it around on his high chair tray, bringing it to his own mouth. In fact, the ability to feed himself is what kickstarted his appetite. 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. 

 

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Eko Song playlist