11 months

At 11 months Owen is waving bye-bye, no longer hates having his diaper changed, gives kisses, continues to love the bath and is talking up a storm.  He says mama, dada and a whole of gibberish.  Owen likes to dance, is super ticklish and laughs a lot.  He loves being around older kids and watching them play.  Owen loves to play with and antagonize Jake; we were wondering why Jake all of the sudden starting chewing up the baby toys and discovered it's because Owen gives them to him. Owen also chews on Jake's balls, so I guess it's only fair.  They are buds.  Owen went through a hunger strike and refused to eat any solid foods for a few weeks.  Now he is back to eating solids but is much more selective than he used to be.  He opens his mouth for a tiny taste and proceeds to eat only if he decides he likes it. And what he likes varies from day to day.  One days he loves applesauce and the next he won't have anything to do with it.  His favorite foods right now are grapes, cheerios, puffs, veggie soup, spaghetti and yogurt.  Ty made him pancakes and he wouldn't have anything to do with them. What kid doesn't like pancakes?!  He still loves to nurse but is finally starting to wean himself. He is still cruising and crawling his way into plenty of mischief but he isn't standing without holding onto anything yet.  I think we still have some time before the first steps.

Owen loves being around people and seeing his favorites.  He lights up and squeals when he sees nana, Auntie Rach, grammy and grampy.  I love it that he is a people person.  He pretty much loves everybody and seems to remember people.  Once you've met and held him once or twice, he crawls right up to you and wants you to scoop him up.  We somehow avoided the stranger danger phase and he never went through a major period of separation anxiety. His first cold came last month and lasted for weeks.  It went from a runny nose to a cough to a runny nose again.  Although I hate seeing him sick, I'm of the mentally that getting a few colds is good for him, he has to build up that little immune system somehow.

Month 11 brought Owen's first little fit; he screamed and cried when I took a Starbucks cup away from him.  We are now to the point where we have to start thinking about our discipline philosophy and start actually "parenting."  For the majority of the first year the focus is on keeping a helpless little human fed, clean, loved and warm.  As Owen is becoming a toddler he is less helpless and will continue to become more independent each day.  As a parent your job then becomes to teach them how to be a good person; kind, loving, passionate, empathetic, and a productive member of society.  That is a pretty overwhelming job. I can't say we've settled on how we are going to teach and discipline Owen but I am drawn to the emotion coaching school of thought, where you teach kids that all emotions are okay but all actions are not.  I want Owen to know that it's okay to be upset but that doesn't give him the right to lash out.  For now I try and use positive discipline and primarily redirect Owen if he's doing something I don't want him to.   I try to reserve using "no" for situations where I mean business.  Playing in the dog food gets "that's Jake's, how about we play with your train," while climbing on the hot oven gets a "no."  I'm interested to talk to the girls in my PEPS group, as well as my other parent friends about their discipline philosophies and learn more about developmentally appropriate styles.