Thanksgiving

We have a lot to be thankful for this year - Alexander has brought a lot of joy into our lives!

We spent the Thanksgiving holidays with family in Maine. Alexander enjoyed it, but he also seemed really glad to be back with his familiar surroundings. He slept through thanksgiving dinner itself, after having his dinner at Mommy's Milk Bar, but woke up in time to help with the leftovers, and really liked getting to eat some turkey and mashed potatoes and peas and green beans.

Alexander is starting to show some good problem solving skills when it comes to navigating around the house. He is now confidently crawling on all fours, but has recently figured out how to drop to his belly to wiggle under obstacles and get out the other side. He was in the living room, trying to get to me in the kitchen, but the way was blocked by his swing and a folding chair. He whined for a moment, then stopped, belly crawled under the chair, and was on his way. Similarly, when getting packed to come home from Maine, he was trying to get past an area blocked by a suitcase and a towel, and very deliberately pulled the towel out of the way so he could crawl through that space.

He's understanding the Mommy Voice, or Daddy Voice, and testing it's limits. When he got the Mommy Voice to stay away from part of the computer this weekend, he stopped, but then tried to touch the same area again while watching me to see what I'd do. After a repetition of the Mommy Voice, he moved on to play with other things instead.

He enjoys "helping" in the kitchen. Last week he very deliberately took every towel out of the towel drawer, one by one, and dropped them on the floor. Today all of the tupperware containers from the tupperware cabinet are scattered across the kitchen. He even was kind enough to take out the counter liner for me. :)

He's cruising around the furniture - he's getting pretty confident about walking as long as he has at least one hand to balance himself with. Thank goodness he doesn't show any signs of being able to balance without something to hold onto yet, but I'm sure it will come soon.

He now has 5 teeth, two bottom, three top. The first of the top teeth came through last weekend, around Nov 22nd, with the second one close behind, and the third top tooth broke through last night.

And now, it is time for me to teach. More pictures and videos soon, I hope!

We're in trouble...

Part 1 - Alexander can now reach the top shelf of the entertainment center - the area where previously we could put stuff that needed to be out of reach. We can still put stuff on top of the entertainment center, but he'll be able to reach that too soon.

Part 2 - Today I was cleaning out the dishwasher, so I took the rack out of the bottom and had the door open while I was rinsing something out in the sink. I looked down to find Alexander was sitting in the middle of the dishwasher door! I have no idea how he got there, but it's probably a sign that I need to put a gate on the bottom end of the stairs soon.

Even the teachers at day care have been commenting on how much of a daredevil he's been lately, pulling himself up on everything and getting into tons of stuff. He's really enjoying his improved balancing ability. And he just took the door off of the Wii - time to go intervene.

And another

And while I'm uploading videos, here he is showing off his new and improved hands and knees version of crawling at the Halloween party this weekend.

Apples

A while back we got several bags of apples from our CSA. Alexander's mommy is so stingy she won't even buy him a ball to play with, so he had to improvise by stealing one of the apples out of the bags and rolling it around on the floor. :) It actually worked pretty well - it was round enough to roll a decent way, but then it would end up on a flat surface and stop rolling so he could catch up with it. He was much less frustrated with this than he was with normal balls at this stage of crawling, and chased it around the kitchen for quite a while.

More Pictures

Look at me stand!

I love you Mal!!!


Mom, you really need some help organizing this cabinet....


Look, see these ones go on the TOP shelf!

Pictures, pictures, pictures!

Showing off two of his favorite activities of a few weeks ago - he discovered that he could stick out his tongue. And that he could hold TWO of something!! One for each hand!! TWO!!!!

Rawrr.

I'm coming to get you!


Showing off the hat and jacket from Memere - and his two bottom teeth! (So hard to get those in a picture!)

Hanging with Uncle Nick.

November, and changes are in the wind

Alexander hit one of those phases where he's figuring out new things in leaps and bounds. Mostly to do with mobility - we're in trouble. He's getting very good at balancing and pulling himself up now - I'm beginning to wake up to him standing in the crib in the mornings, and as long as he has one hand to balance himself he can stand well. He looks a lot taller these days, but I think a large part of that is because he's loosing the baby bowleggedness and actually standing up straight. This weekend he also started really crawling on hands and knees for more extended periods. I finally caught him in the act of sitting up from a laying position the other day - I know he's been doing it for a while, but never while I was watching. He's been teething this weekend, so likely the top teeth will be on their way before too much longer. And he's getting very good about walking his way along pieces of furniture to get to things he wants. Where did my little boy go?

Next post - pictures!