Someone recently asked me how old Fred was, and I gasped. It’s currently July. His birthday is in August. I am not ready.

Here’s my happy 11 month old:

Ben helped me with the photo shoot. I asked him to make Fred laugh by standing behind me. He stood behind Fred instead. Ha!

Fred is just so sweet. He loves animals and his brother and will crawl as fast as he can to get to them. For some reason, Fred is the only kid that Jackie doesn’t run away from. She’s even let him pet her and pull her tail a little. We separate them right away, but I’m shocked that she’s allowing it. I’m telling you, Fred has a certain charm about him…

He lacks stranger danger or separation anxiety, which makes my life a lot easier. Yet, he still lights up when he sees me return with the best smile. Fred can really make anyone’s day with his happy face. He is just a cool, chill baby (unless he’s tired….or hungry….)

The boys have had a breakthrough in their relationship. While Ben still likes Fred to keep his distance, the other day I got to witness them playing on the same toy for multiple minutes. And for the second time ever, Ben wanted to hold Fred. It lasted a squirmy 10 seconds. It was awesome.

Apparently Fred is following in the footsteps of his brother’s love for anything with wheels. He makes car noises and rolls things around. It’s always a great time in the day for him when his brother actually naps and he gets free reign of the trains!

And even though their relationship is improving, we still suffer from and delight in the fact that Fred just wants to do everything that Ben is doing.

We started out the month with a double ear infection and croup. He was the happiest kid at the doctor, but it was a rough afternoon and couple of days…

Fred can make signs for “more” and “milk” and claps/dances (waves) on command. He also puckers his lips for a “kiss” on command, but I don’t have witnesses for this. He’ll never do it in front of other people. Ha! He is still only threatening to walk, but he is ridiculously fast with crawling and cruising along furniture. The entertainment center had to be blocked, because his mission in life was to constantly clear the movies off of the shelf and do pull ups on the tv stand. He is developing an amazing “will this get me in trouble?” face. The sweet smile that dares me to stop him from climbing the stairs or sticking things in outlets. The other picture features when he busted out of library baby jail.

Ben has had a breakthrough in his desire to sing songs and tell jokes. He remains a homebody, but he likes outings once he’s out and about. My introverted buddy has an engineer brain. His year was made when Jesse got out the REAL Lego. He loves to design and redesign train tracks, put together puzzles, and figure out how things work. This morning, he ran around the house with a level that had magnets on one side. He made sure things were straight and then announced, “I’m a scientist that looks for metal things! Magnets stick to it!”

Someday I will be thrilled that he does things for intrinsic value, but it’s super annoying right now. Sticker charts, incentives, and bribery just don’t work well with Ben. He could want something SO BAD, but once I say he can have it as a reward for something, he can totally give up on the idea if he doesn’t like the task. It’s impressive.

Ben is also a creature of habit. He wants the same breakfast everyday – in the same order – on the same spot on the place mat. Orange juice. Oatmeal. Bagel with cream cheese.

I’m still trying to get Ben interested in drawing and writing without pushing too hard. This is how he completed some pre-writing activities:

Yet, every now and then, he humors me…

He is a big helper and likes to be outside (once he agrees to leaving his trains).

A couple sweet moments: The top picture is when he just suddenly announced, “Take my picture, Momma?” He rarely poses, so this was adorable. The other picture was when I took the boys to Chick-Fil-A, and it was so crowded that I couldn’t put a high chair on the end of the table. Ben sat with perfect manners across from me in a booth by himself like a big boy. When did that happen??

Other highlights of the last month include:

• Our parks tour (see separate blog entries – we’re almost done with 31 parks in 31 days!!)
• We went out for Jesse’s birthday with some friends to see the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion show. Zombie Burger and a movie is a guaranteed good time.
• I continue to get together with friends that I used to teach with for guilty pleasure television. It is a much needed and appreciated weekly treat.
• 4th of July weekend with my folks, including the Norwalk parade and an anniversary getaway (see separate post about that). Check out how Fred does parades. Play hard, nap hard.
  
• Play dates, friends, parades, and parks. Summer is the BEST.

It took a good month for my hormones to regulate after weaning Fred. Whew, what a ride. I’ll have to write up a new breastfeeding entry sometime, but that is for another day. Summary: Fed is best – go team! But for now, I’m just enjoying feeling normal again and ridiculously excited and ridiculously sad to put Fred’s baby days behind us. Soaking in this summer before Fred is an actual toddler and Ben is off to preschool!! Wow!