Graham: 11 Months

 Reasons why this baby cakes has my heart:

• When I pick him up, he relaxes his body so I can squish him and hold him tight.  
• If I'm holding him but not paying enough attention, he'll swoop from my hip to put his face right up in mine.  Jude did the same thing :).  
• He still has big, wet, drool soaked smiles that have given him a rash around his mouth.
• 4 teeth, all the better to shovel food into his mouth.
• He "waves", i.e. sticks his arm straight out at you, and it looks a little Nazi-esque if you want to know the truth.  But he'll learn to wiggle his hand too and I won't be worried he'll come off as a white supremacist.  
• My Mother-in-law and Erica heard him say "cruck" (truck) over christmas.  Last night he was on my lap and ripped a board book spine (it had been hanging on my a thread already).  I said, "Uh-oh" and he said, "Uh-uh" a handful of times.  !!!
• He greets you in the morning with outstretched arms and the biggest smile this side of the Mississippi.  
• He must follow Jude everywhere and participate.  Sometimes this doesn't work out for obvious reasons, but when it does it is cute.  I love to hear Jude say, "Gam, pay wis me!"
• He taught himself to drink out of a straw tonight, purely in an effort to copy Jude (I think).
• Graham will go off roaming around the family room and will totally entertain himself.  Jude definitely believed I was his cruise director at this age, so it's a little surprising but very sweet and keeps me a little more sane.
• He's just got to clap.  He claps and claps, and even when he's tired and cranky he will start clapping, look like fatigue is sweeping his face, asking him to rest those weary palms, and then you can see a resurgence of will, and he goes on.  MUST.  KEEP.  CLAPPING!!!!

I am not sure how this year has flown by the way it has, but it's gone too fast for me.  Graham is so easy to love.