Benjamin 11 months

We have a very active boy....stand up.....fall down...crawl around...stand up.....scoot around the table...fall down...crawl over to table again and stand up....etc, etc, etc...all day long.  1 week before his 11 month birthday he started pulling himself up to a standing position.  He would stand up at the coffee table at my Mom's house the most.  A few weeks later, he is pulling himself up onto almost anything.  Drawers in the kitchen, the couch, tables, beds, chairs and even people! You can just see the joy on his face when he climbs up and stands there!

Another fun development we have noticed in Benjamin is his "conversation". It is still only DA DA DA words he uses, but the inflection in his voice changes and it seems like he is trying to tell you something.  He will hold out a toy to you and say DA DA DA in a way that seems like he is trying to tell you something about the toy.  It is really fun to see his different expressions.  One of his favorite things to do is slam arms and hands down on the table and say DA DA. If you do it first he will copy you and do it even bigger.  He also imitates noises, faces and head movements.  He has this special move that I like to call the "head banger." He will just throw his head around and make happy noises.
We are still struggling with Benjamin at night...most nights.  During a typical night he is awake from 1-1½ hours.  Prior to his learning how to stand up, he would often be awake crying, or talking.  But now he wants to practice his standing during the night.  He will stand up, throw his pacifier across the room and then start whining.  We lay him down again and he repeats the same show over and over again.  I think last night I counted around 30 times before I stopped counting.  Eventually he falls asleep on his own, so that gives us hope.  On the other hand Benjamin is not waking up at 5am anymore...now he can sleep until 7 or even later.  So that is also nice (Also because Silas is sleeping later too!)

Otherwise Benjamin continues to be his happy and smiley self. He still loves to pose and smile for the camera, crawl around and play with toys.  His favorites seem to be Silas' toys....Silas' firetruck, cars, magnets...whatever Silas is playing with.  Benjamin has begun to start putting pieces in boxes and he can spend a long time putting them in and dumping them out again.  In the kitchen he loves taking magnets off the refrigerator and getting into the Tupperware drawer.

Mealtimes have been easier and Benjamin has a great appetite.  He likes to hold his own spoon when we are feeding him oatmeal and he tells us when he is done eating by dropping all the food off of the table!

Benjamin wears size 80 clothes and weighs...well I don't know, I'll have to weigh him soon!

The many attempts at the month photo with "friend"