Talking more

11 months
Evan has learned to say no. Actually, let me clarify: he says, "nononono." He mostly asserts himself when we're trying to feed him something green, and he shakes his head back and forth in his high chair while saying, "nononono!" Last night he was determined to get to the fireplace, and we kept moving him and saying, "no," and then distracting him, and two seconds later he'd get up, and walk towards the fireplace while saying, "nononono..."

He's walking everywhere. He loves to push things. If I let him loose in a cafe, he immediately walks over to a chair so that he can push it around. At least it keeps him busy.

He's wild in the bathtub. Obsessed with pulling out the knob that makes the shower turn on. Then looks shocked/thrilled/horrified at the water splashing at him. I push the knob back in and he pulls it back out. Once I've successfully distracted him away from that fiasco, he starts playing with the plug that lets all the water out. His Sponge Bob toy is rarely enough to keep him away from this excitement.

He's pretty much decided against baby food. He seems to resent the lack of control associated with having a spoon shoved at him. He likes bananas, cherry tomatoes (still), all fruits, eggs, toast, black beans, rice, and orzo!

Sometimes he calls me "mum mum." I love it. I can pretend to be British now.

Updates

Here's a shot of Evan at the zoo. Looks like he was pasted in, but he wasn't, he was really there. I'm not sure what beast lurks behind him, but I assure you it smelled funky. Everything at the zoo smelled kinda gamey. They should do something about that.

I'm on vacation this week tending to things that get neglected in normal life. This site is one of those neglected things. I mentioned a while back that we had some new and exciting stuff thrown our way when the host crashed and died. I've finally been able to play with the new stuff the site is updated. We now have a new gallery section that will be much easier for us to maintain than the manual system I was (or wasn't) doing before. Also check out the forums and please sign in at the guestbook and leave a little note for Evan's first birthday.

Walking all over the place!
All of a sudden, he's a walker! He took his first tentative steps 3 weeks ago, and now he's an expert. He walked 14 steps last night, across the room. Still, even though he's walking a lot more, he still walks like Frankenstein -- legs far apart and stiff, and arms out in front of him. Jerry noticed that he keeps coming back to base... the other day he would walk across the room, then come back to Jerry and bear hug him, then walk to his toy box, then back to Jerry for a bear hug, then to the closet, then a bear hug.

10 ¾ months
Favorite foods: tomatoes and bananas
Evan loves cherry tomatoes. We cut them in half for him, he sucks out the juice, and then spits out the skins. There will be seeds everywhere, even in his hair. We ran out of bananas and tomatoes for a few days, and he seemed dissatisfied with every other food.
He got his fourth tooth in! It’s on the top in the front, just barely poking from beneath the surface.
Sleeping – He’s sleeping for longer periods of time. Sometimes he doesn’t wake up the first time until 2 or 3. The only problem is, he thinks it’s time to rise and shine at 4 or 5. He’s not upset or crying or anything, he’s just happy to see us and moves around a lot. It’s as if he doesn’t want to sleep 11 hours a night like we want him to. Not sure what to do about that.
Other cute things: he now smiles when we take his picture. He pulls at his diaper when it’s dirty. He knows to take his foot out of his pant legs when we’re undressing him. He discovered his tallywacker and his budda belly. He’s very aware of his body now.
Walking - He's taking a few steps at a time each day. He doesn't seem to know that it's a big deal, but he'll only do it if no one's looking and there's no pressure.
Jerry and I are enjoying him so much. We didn’t realize how much we’d love being parents. I’m sure every parent says this, but we feel like we got the best baby ever!