Mr. 11 Months Old. Full of sass, screams, and flirting. And obviously still semi-obsessed with his hands.  We’re starting to get the feeling that maybe Archer isn’t going to be all calm cool and collected like we thought. Maybe he’s going to end up being more of a wild child perhaps? Still hard to say, but one thing’s for sure – this one is figuring out his voice and making sure we alllllll know his opinions (ahem – a Shingleton trait?).

This week we had our first-ever ER visit with Archer. He’d been sick the past few days with a nasty snotty cold and he kept tugging on his ears. An earlier visit in the week to the urgent care proved no ear infection despite my impression on the matter, but on Wednesday night, we were literally up all night long with him screaming. Like miserable, in pain screaming. I finally had enough and at 6am, I blearily drove him to the ER. And I’m not going to lie – it was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen to watch them poking the baby to get an IV in him. He was dehydrated, angry, exhausted, miserable, and as it turns out – absolutely fine. No fever, no infection, no UTI, no nothing. Just a cold plus teething plus gas. All that angst for nothing, but it sure had us worried. I sobbed buckets out of exhaustion and fear and then we spent the rest of the day napping and loving on the baby. Thank God for Simon Shingleton to hold my hand and be there next to me.

Beyond that, though, he’s had an eventful month of visiting Santa for the first time (impression: favorable though possibly suspicious). And how hilarious is Elmo photobombing them?

I’m in major denial that my baby will be 1 next month. This is utterly absolutely unacceptable. Nope. Not having it! We are never gonna grow up over here, just like Peter Pan!