Fenn at Eleven Months Old

This is Fenn at Eleven Months. This is the eleventh installment in the "12-month onesie" series. I'm having a really hard time believing he is 11 months old. Only one more of these posts to do, and we're done with the little white onesie. It is stretched about as tight as it can go... and has been for a while. Good thing this project is almost done, because it is getting increasingly hard to get a picture of him. I used to be able to lie him down, climb up on my stool, and snap away until I thought I had some good ones. But now I'm barely able to get one picture before he crawls away. He apparently thinks it's a game because he laughs hysterically. I actually had to have Dan help me take this picture. I suppose I'll do this same thing with the next baby. But this time, I'll buy the Carter's brand of onesie instead of the Gerber brand. The Gerber one just happens to be what I found first, before I knew any better. But it runs smaller than the Carter's brand. I think we would be able to see more differences from month to month with the Carter's onesie.

Once again, it has been a busy month for Fenn and for us. Fenn has been trying all sorts of different foods here lately. He devours zwieback toast. He's been eating this for a while, but really loves his Yo-Baby Yogurt and Earth's Best brand cereal bars (both organic). I decided to get domestic on Halloween and baked some homemade (from scratch... where I even had to sift the flour) Pumpkin Bread. Fenn absolutely loved it! It was the funniest thing watching him shove the pieces into his mouth. That day, I also made some Halloween sugar cookies (not from scratch ~ just the pre-made dough in the tube). We let him try them and he really liked those, too. The next morning, we got up and went to Waffle House for breakfast. No surprise here... he loves waffles. I can't think of the rest, but he has tried a few more new foods over the last month. He seems to like most anything and is a really good eater. Two more things I forgot about that he LOVES: Cheese, Broccoli, & Turkey Whole Wheat Quesadillas and Blackberries.
He seemed to take all the new experiences in stride. He loved going to the pumpkin patch, the hayride, and trick-or-treating for the first time. And he had a great time at his very first birthday party. It was for his friend, Ella Kate, from daycare. But we had one new experience we were not counting on until he was at least two years old. We had to take him to the dentist! On Tuesday night of last week (Nov. 4th), I discovered that his left upper central incisor was broken off at an angle and had a pretty sharp point on it. Of course, our first reaction was "When in the world did this happen?" You would think he would have cried when he hit whatever it was that caused his tooth to break. But we could not remember anything from the last day or so, and daycare had not reported any major accidents. I was only able to narrow it down to having to happen either Monday or Tuesday. I may have missed it one night, but I would not have missed it for more than that. Or, I suppose another option would be that it happened a while back, but only weakened the tooth, and then the tooth broke off sometime that day. Anyway, we found a pediatric dentist and got an appointment for the next day. I took him by myself because Dan had an appointment with a client he couldn't change. The appointment went surprisingly well. I sat in the dentist's chair and held Fenn in my lap while the dentist examined his tooth. He fussed a little about having someone look in his mouth, but not much. Then they decided they wanted to get an x-ray. Since I'm pregnant, one of the dental assistants had to hold Fenn. Once again, he did great and was fine having a complete stranger hold him. He protested a little more because they had to hold his mouth open and try to keep him still for several seconds. Not an easy task with an 11-month old. What are you going to do... tell them to "Be still."??? The dentist decided to wait about 10 days before filing the sharp edge off of the tooth. He was afraid of causing any more trauma to the tooth and nerves than had already occurred, thus possibly causing Fenn to lose that tooth. So in the meantime, Fenn is living with a sharp tooth. We go back next Monday to get it filed down. After that, all we can do is hope it is not damaged enough to cause him to lose the tooth. We can get it fixed at some point (i.e., a cap or veneer), but that's a decision we'll make at a later date when he's a little older. It would be an outpatient procedure, but they would have to put him under... which mommy and daddy aren't sure they want to do. Otherwise, he'll have to live with the crooked tooth until he gets his permanent tooth. They took a picture of him at the dentist (something they do for all first timers). They're supposed to send me a copy, but I haven't gotten it yet. I was hoping to have it by now so I could post it. He was all smiles, though!

Remaining on the topic of teeth, Fenn's left lower first molar broke through on Sunday, November 9th. The kid is only 11 months old and has 9 teeth! He is still not walking on his own, but does occasionally stand for a second or two without holding onto anything. So I think he's still a little ways from taking that first step. He has started moving and grooving to music. So cute! He'll bounce up and down to the beat of the music... well, sort of. He definitely likes music, though. And right now, his favorite toys are books, books, books, and balls. Did I mention that he really loves books? Sometimes he'll sit down on the floor with a book and just flip the pages for a while. And one more occasion went by that was really hard for mommy. November 2nd marked one year since we lost Cole. I still cry about him and miss him so much. Oh how he would have loved Fenn!