The Caterpillar Room

It's been a while since I've blogged. It's been a long couple weeks between family time and madness at work while we try to meet three deadlines for different publications.

Zach's been reaching several developmental milestones -- all related to play.

When I watched Zach play with his toys before, I couldn't help thinking of Toy Story 3. Remember the part when the toys are worried about being in the Caterpillar Room, the room with all the toddlers who are too young to understand how to play with the toys correctly? When Zach "played" with his toys, he swatted at them, flipped them over and knocked them to the ground. While he still does most of that, he will also roll his toy bus, push the levers of his gear machine and, just today, has started putting the ball at the top of a windy track. He also loves to play ball. We roll the ball to him and he throws it... though we do need to work on his accuracy!

Jamer and I start squealing with delight when he does something new -- actually we whisper urgently to the other in hopes that we come running to see it before Zach's distracted by something else.

He continues to cruise from side to side and is getting pretty fast (especially if he REALLY wants that glass of water on the other side of the table), but refuses to move his feet forward.

He's on about three bottles a day and finger foods the rest. We've basically eliminated "baby" food because he really seems to enjoy being able to feed himself (and Annie when he's bored).

In other news we're in the process of planning his first birthday party. I can't believe how fast time flies. He's already almost 11 months!