Alessandro is 11-months old on Saturday. He has covered a lot of ground in his 10th month: he added 4 new teeth (the upper eyes and fronts), experimented and then mastered crawling, learned to turn around to go down stairs backwards and he's now walking...like a drunken sailor, but he's walking!
He loves getting into the cabinets, dumping out Grandma's recycling basket, playing hide-and-go-seek, throwing the letters from A & B's stools and any bath toys he can reach down the stairs, the Cars toy Elio gave him and in his sisters' new Fairy House. He will be forever embarrassed to find out that, when finally in the bathroom cabinets, his favorite thing to play with is Mommy's tampons! He plays with gusto and enthusiasm, catapulting himself into the throws of things. He loves to do what everyone else is doing and just sort of fit in. He now gets angry when he's fed food that looks different than what everyone else is eating - no more jarred foods or he'll screech! "I want what they've got -- whatever that is..."
Twice this week, he's proven he's trying to communicate. His first word, ironically, was the same as the girls': "dog." I found this very interesting since we don't have a dog anymore. He saw a dog at the park and again at Great-Aunt MaryAnn's house. He pointed and said very clearly, "dog!" He has also repeated back to me "done" when he's finished eating and doesn't want any more. He signs "done," too. He has also started waving hello if you tell him "hi" and is saying, "uh,oh" if he drops something. We can't believe that he'll be a year old next month!! It's gone by very fast...
