Holden ushered in Memorial Day weekend as an 11-month old baby.  It’s hard to believe we’ll be celebrating his first birthday in a few short weeks.  Holden still loves people (especially other babies), animals, chasing the kitty around the house, tormenting the rabbit, dancing, “reading” to himself, going to the park, and getting into everything he can get his not-so-little hands on.  His vocalizations are sounding increasingly speech-like, and he has developed some rudimentary sounds that he associates with specific objects.  “Dig-dig” is his word for dog.  “Itty” is his word for “kitty” (he has yet to master the “k” sound).  This past weekend he started being able to stand unassisted from a sitting position.  It was pretty wild to watch him rise up to a standing position without using any support or relying on anyone else’s reassuring grasp.  As I watched him stand, I saw the little self-corrective movements in his feet, legs, and trunk that prevented him from crashing to the ground.  It’s amazing how quickly we are able to acquire these sorts of motor skills.  Holden is indeed a little machine, optimally designed for learning.  

Holden is still working on some more teeth.  The pain seems to come and go without any rhyme or reason.  On days where his teeth are obviously bothering him, his sleep suffers.  He’s asleep by 7:30PM every night—he wakes up every couple of hours thereafter, and finally wakes up for the day between 5AM and 6AM.  I don’t think I’d mind the early waking time if he slept more soundly throughout the night.  I could even tolerate a couple of night wakenings without much of a problem.  The constant interruption of my sleep is really starting to take its toll, though.  That said, during our Memorial Day getaway to Maine, Holden slept through the night two nights in a row.  This hasn’t happened since January.  When we returned home from Maine, he reverted back to his crappy sleeping habits.  I do wonder about the noise in our condo and whether that contributes to Holden’s poor sleeping.  We live on a busy street and there are people up and down our driveway at all hours of the night, smoking cigarettes/drinking beer just below his bedroom window, etc.  It will be interesting to see if Holden sleeps better after we move.  I do have to add though, that Holden and I have perfected our little bedtime routine.  It used to be that we’d do our bedtime stories, brushing teeth, nursing, followed quickly by being tucked into bed.  I’ve found that Holden is so much more relaxed if I cuddle with him for a while after he is done nursing before I tuck him into bed.  It does end up taking me 45-60 minutes to get him to go to sleep, but the process is so so sweet and special that I really don’t care how damn long it takes.  After he’s done nursing, I position him so his head is resting on my shoulder.  I usually pat his hair and rub his back.  He blinks slowly and his eyes lose their focus.  But he will occasionally smile as if he feels like the most loved baby on the planet.  It’s so sweet.  When I finally do lay him in his crib, he rolls immediately to his tummy and smiles as I rub his back and pat his hair.  He just loves going to sleep this way.  This isn’t to say that he is always this placid and tranquil at bedtime, but nine times out of ten, he really is.  I just love this time with him and I will be sad when he outgrows it and wants to go to sleep on his own.

And speaking of growing up quickly—we’ve begun the slow process of parting with Holden’s baby items.  His jumper, which he absolutely LOVED as a younger baby but hasn’t used since he was 5 months old, was given to a family with a little baby.  We’re selling his co-sleeper and a bunch of other things that Holden has outgrown.  It’s nice in some respects to know that we are past the babyhood period of our lives but of course it’s also incredibly difficult to accept that Holden really is on the verge of leaving babyhood forever.  I wonder sometimes if I cherished the time with him enough; I was so consumed with job searching this past year and wallowing in my own self-pity and being angry with our neighbors, that I sometimes wonder if I wasn’t present enough with Holden.  It’s kind of irrelevant, these thought exercises in self-loathing.  I can’t do it over—all I can do is commit to being more present for him in the days to come.  Looking back, I really do think I did the best I could.

To wrap up this rambling and incoherent post, I will leave you with some of my favorite images from the past several weeks:

At Fort Williams.  I was worried about H’s feet being cold.  You will see that I am holding his feet with my hands in every shot.

Cookout at Uncle Joe’s.  Holden enjoyed crawling, ice cream, and unassisted standing.  He looks so big!

I love this photo.  It looks like an advertisement for something.  Of what, I do not know.

Fort Williams.  Holden spies Papa trying to covertly capture this moment.  I am  probably oblivious because I am too wrapped up in keeping H’s feet warm, again.

Someone is a drama queen.  Holden has established several different ways of telling us “No,” including shaking his head, arching his back and crying, struggling and crying, screaming, and now this:

Holden with his pal Mallory.  They share a nanny together two days a week.  Mallory accidentally bit Holden last week.  But it doesn’t matter.  Holden is loyal and loves her anyway:

So happy to be outside!

Holden is still in love with Mallory:

Holden loves spending time with his Papa: