Leo is Eleven Months Old! (belated)

Leo is eleven months old and the milestones are coming fast and furious! Of course, as we learned right before he started walking, Leo's awesome sleep habits always seem to fall by the wayside right as he is about to learn something new. So we've all been getting less rest around here as a result of Leo's new skills and his desire to practice them at all hours of the day and night. He's back to sleeping through the night, but putting him to bed has been really challenging for a few weeks now. He just wants to keep playing!

Leo finally learned how to crawl! One day after his 11 month birthday, he got up on all fours and started crawling for real. He still prefers to army crawl on slippery surfaces like our hardwood floors because he's much faster that way. Getting up on all fours has also allowed Leo to learn how to transition from his belly back to seated, and from his belly to standing. He prefers to sort of walk up a vertical object with his hands, but he is able to slowly stand up on his own in the middle of the room. It is so cute to watch him stick his little butt out as a counterbalance! He also really enjoys bending down to pick up objects off of the floor, and then walk around the house with them. Leo is especially good at finding little snacks - old scraps of food from his lunch that he threw off of his tray, fuzzies from the rug, etc.

Leo is still adjusting to being with Tara and Isabel during the day. He still hasn't had a full 5-day week with them - next week will be his first. He is very clingy and needy when Derek and I leave in the morning and come home at night. (We think his bedtime antics have a lot to do with wanting to hang out with us for even longer at night.) But as you can see from Tara's photos and videos, he seems to have lots of fun while we are away! 

Leo doesn't have too many words yet, but he seems to understand a good deal of what we say. He babbles at us in his own language, and does use certain sounds repeatedly for some objects. "Up" is light, for example, and he says the same thing whenever he shares his toys with us. He signs "more" and "all done," and when we tell him "no," he wipes his hand back and forth across his mouth. Tara thinks he is trying to wipe away the word!