first hair cut

last nite, jessica came over to give talan his very first hair cut. i had thought about waiting until after his first birthday, but after seeing some pictures i realized it needed to be done NOW!!! i would have posted these last nite, but the trauma from hayden's big hair cut had me emotionally drained (he still loves it and i still am crying and don't even recognize him).
anyway. talan doesn't like to sit still so it wasn't an easy job for jessica. not to mention the fact that it was past his bedtime and he was exhausted! he did pretty well, though, and the job got done. he can see again! and tina will be oh so happy.


before:

get those things out of my face:
calming down a bit:



the end is near:


PLEASE stop!:
after:

crazy hair

talan woke up the other morning with insane hair. we weren't going anywhere so i didn't do anything about it. i figured when he went down for his nap it'd have to straighten out a bit. but it didn't. it stayed this way the entire day. and boy was it funny.

11 months

we are deep in the planning process for talan's first birthday party and even still i just inadvertently titled this blog "9 months." i obviously can't believe he is already 11 months old.
it was a big month for him and i have a feeling that this one will be even bigger as just today he was doing all sort of new things.
he is now crawling normally on his hands and knees 100% of the time. i can't even remember the last time i saw him do his army stomach scoot. and he can crawl fast, too! if he sees that someone has mistakenly left the bathroom door open, he crawls at lightening speed to try to beat us to it.
he pulls himself up onto everything possible and now cruises with ease along the furniture. he still shows no other interest in walking when we hold his fingers, though. he'll simply put his legs straight out as if he were sitting in mid-air. even when he is in his jumper, he'll walk across the floor as far as the jumper will reach. but no way will he take steps while holding ontosomeone's hands!
he has really been picking up the baby sign language, although it seems he may not need it the way hayden could have benefited from it! talan is already saying (or at least attempting) several words and often tries to imitate what or how we are saying something. just today i would say "awww, teddy bear." and he would go over to the bear and say "awwww, eh ee ha." every time he does something like this i consider it a coincidence until he continues doing it to prove me wrong.
a couple of weeks ago at dinner hayden said that something was yucky and suddenly we all heard talan say loud and clear "yucky." we haven't heard him say that one since, but it was very obvious that nite.
he continues to mostly clap for the baby sign "more" but he now also says "more" while he does the sign. the "r" isn't there, but you can tell he is saying "more." he says "uh oh" and "wow", "woah" and an occasional "mama" when i ask him to.
he recently picked up the sign for "milk" as well. while we were in grand rapids for justin's show i saw talan doing the sign but thought he was waving. i couldn't figure out why he would be waving to the wall and when i looked down, i realized the diaper bag was sitting there and he could see the bottles. he knows what he wants, that's for sure.
it is almost impossible to change his diaper or clothes anymore. the second you put him on the changing table he starts rolling over and doing everything he can do to break away. i remember this phase withhayden and we'd have to change him on the floor with one of our legs laying on top of him so he couldn't move. i fear this will be happening withtalan soon.
something new he has gotten into this month is the rocking elephant in his room. he'll crawl right over to it and pull himself up and just wait for me to put him on it. he can stay on it for quite awhile before he starts falling off to one side and i have to slide him back up again. he'll just sit up there holding onto the handles and rocking himself across the room. the whole time with a huge smile on his face.
as with all previous months, he still loves to jump. however, it seems like he does much more spinning and swinging in his jumper these days than jumping. it could be because he's getting a little too big for his jumper, but i thinka lot of it just has to do with the fact that he simply likes to swing and spin.
he has discovered the buttons on the tv and now that he can easily pull himself up he will reach up and push them. just this morning we had a big lesson on the work "no." there hasn't been a whole lot of that with him, and this morning i had flashbacks ofhayden at this stage. mr. strong will himself. talan did a pretty good job in the strong will category himself today. i would tell him "no" and remove him. he would crawl back, pull back up and reach for the buttons. unlike hayden, several times he would cry when i removed him. but he would go right back over and try again.
after nap i realized he really was hayden's opposite when he crawled over to the tv, started pulling himself up, looked over at me and when i said "no" he dropped down to the ground. i had no idea what on earth to do with that. a kid that actually listens to me?! i clapped and told him "yeah...what a good boy you are." and then he proceeded to clap and say "yeah" and watch himself in the glass door of the entertainment center.
a couple of hours later, however, he must have forgotten the morning lesson as he once again started to push the buttons. and on the lesson went....
he continues to take 2 naps a day, most days at least. he goes to bed at 8, although there are some evenings, like tonite, that he is exhausted and goes to bed between 7 and 7:30. today the clocks changed so i'm sure hoping he doesn't wake up at 5am tomorrow morning! most nites he sleeps through the nite, but there are some evenings that he'll wake up and cry. it typically only lasts for a few seconds but there have been a couple of evenings where we've actually had to go in and calm him down. must have been dreaming abouthayden beating him again.
he is eating more and more people food these days. he usually does really well eating little bites of chicken. yesterday he at a ton of the chicken from my burrito. it's nice having one kid that will eat what we're having! his new favorite thing to eat are pretzel sticks and i think that he actually thinks pretzels are called "more." he'll typically sign and say "more" until he gets pretzels. he also loves club crackers...for whatever reason, it's the one cracker he doesn't smash into thousands of pieces and throw them all onto the kitchen floor. his other favorite food is yogurt. i usually feed him yogurt first at lunch and then when i go to feed him some of his other baby food, he won't eat it. i think from there he'll only eat more yogurt or pretzels. i thinki'll have to start saving the yogurt for last. the second you take it out of the fridge he starts whining and crying until the first spoonful goes into his mouth.
he LOVES baths. he still hasn't learned that he can't just lunge forward to grab a toy. i'm not sure how many times he needs his face to go under before he learns, but i hope it's soon. when he gets overly wiggly on the changing table, he tends to calm down a bit when i start singing to him. he loves really soft and furry things. he'll bury his head into it or bite it and just squeal. he loves getting into the bathroom and unrolling half of the roll of toilet paper. he loves banging blocks together. he loves going intohayden's room and playing with his toys. he doesn't flinch or get scared at loud noises, but we're not scared that he's deaf. he desperately wants to be able to crawl around the kitchen so that he can play in the cats water bowl. he has started taking a bit more interest in thetv and he regularly watches "my friends tigger and pooh" and smiles. he occasionally will sit through me reading a book to him, but it's still annoying because he's constantly trying to turn the pages beforei'm done. he loves when you making a "buzz" sound and thing say "sting!" as you tickle him under his chin. he'll start laughing and back away from you before you can even sting him. he loves the cat andhayden too. he'll play a baby version of "hide and seek" with him which gets he and hayden laughing hysterically.
he's way too heavy for his baby car seat and will be moving on up as soon as the winter is over. he still hates being wrestled into it, but is fine once he's in it. he had an amazing poop this evening that we aren't even sure how it was possible. it went ALL the way up his back but when i first started to change him, i didn't even notice as it appeared to have skipped the lower part of his back. he is pleasant almost always, even at times that he is completely exhausted. he probably could win a "strongest abs" competition. he needs a haircut soon, buti'm just waiting until i know he has enough to cut off that i can keep. he has the world's greatest laugh but an annoying cry (when he actually does cry). he still coughs like an 80 year old smoker but we're used to it by now.
i can't believe the next time i write one of these it will be for a one year old. i think we'll try setting our clocks back a little more than just an hour.
we love you, talan. happy 11 months!