Hooray for Mobility!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Okay, I stole that. Isn't it just everyone's lifelong dream to coin a phrase like that? Something that will go down in history; that whenever people hear it, they'll remember your name. Hey wait, I don't remember who wrote that. Okay, it's A Tale of Two Cities. Oh yeah, that guy. How could I forget? Hey, I go to Bible College, alright? It's not like this is required reading. Ask me to list the books of the Bible. Oh wait, not sure I could do that by memory either. Right.

Anyway, hello again, and welcome to this week's installment. I meant to post yesterday, but alas, we put the boy to bed with the camera in his room and no photos downloaded onto the computer. We would've gone back into his room to get it, but you just don't want to mess with a good thing, you know? The floor is so creaky that we didn't want to risk waking him and having to go through the bedtime routine again, just for the sake of a blog posting. Not that we don't appreciate you--we really do. It's just that you're there and we're here, and you can't help us get him to bed.

Oh sure, excuses, excuses. Oh well. It would've been more convenient for me to post yesterday, too, so there. I just stuck my tongue out at you.

How can you tell I'm the parent of an infant? Speaking of infants, we've got a pretty cute one living with us--let me tell you about him. This week, we've discovered what it means to have some independence--he's officially crawling! Hooray! Sort of.

Like I said, best of times, worst of times. Theo's newfound abilities have had us scrambling. As you saw in last week's video, he's taken to walking quite well, and he continues to progress in this department. With walking, it's a little bit easier--if we don't hold his hands, there's no walking to be had. But with crawling, well, it's a little bit different. And the problem is a little bit more acute when we live in a house with no real door frames to block off an area of the house. The kitchen and living room are attached, and, unfortunately, there's no "door" between them, just a big open space. This has meant some creative solutions, including using his playpen and a Rubbermaid container to block access to the rest of the house. Good times.

It's really cool, though, to see him progress into the arena of movement. It's been fun (when my back hasn't been aching) to walk him around the house. For the first time, he's able to choose where he wants to go, which must be really amazing. I mean, for eight months, he's had to go wherever we go. Now, he can wander around and choose. This has led to several very thorough inspections of the house with mommy or daddy in tow. He's funny because he'll be walking along, shrieking with delight, of course, and he'll see something interesting (like a door stop) and just stop, plunk himself down, and investigate. Then, when he's done with that, he holds his arms up, you grab his hands, he pulls himself up, and it's off again. He'll never get sick of it, either.

Again, I find myself reflecting on how wonderful the world is when you see it through the eyes of an infant. Even coiled door stops are exciting new discoveries. Imagine that. Everything's new, everything's exciting, everything represents a new adventure to be had, a new story to be told. I can't wait until he's old enough to want a detailed explanation of what things are and why they do what they do. It'll be even more of an adventure for me to have to explain how things work, even when I don't really know for sure.

On the teething front, things have settled down considerably this week. As I said in the last post, once the pain stopped, so did the drool and snot. Yummy. He's now got a top-left front tooth pushing through the gumline, and, just tonight, the right-front one cut the gumline as well. That brings our running total to four teeth, and we're happy to see them, if a little bit sad. See my last post on teeth if you want more insight into that.

Another thing we've just noticed is how big this kid's getting. Today we stuck him in his bathtub (which is the kitchen sink--see a previous post for a picture), and we realized that it was probably going to be the last time he'd fit in there. It's amazing--a month-and-a-half ago, he could barely see out the top; now, he's too big. What the heck?! What happened to our little baby boy? Well, he's still here, and even more fun than before, but he's not so little anymore. My thoughts go back to Jim Croce and saving time in a bottle. But hey, that's why we have pictures and videos, right? Right?

Oh, get over it, you sap. I know, but it's just so strange. Time is marching on, no matter what we have to say about it. The semester is halfway done now, too (note to self: write essays), so it won't be long before we're back home again for a month. *Sigh.*

Let's move on, shall we? Not sure what else to report, but I'm sure I'll think of something as soon as I publish this posting. Which might mean an edit or two. Check back tomorrow, just in case.

And now, some photos (the part you all come here for). Although it's really tough to capture him crawling (we've tried a video several times with no results to speak of), we managed to grab a couple of stills. Here he is, coiled in the starting blocks...

Getting a little bit closer...

Uh oh. Um, that might be a little bit too close...

And, of course, being a ham (he'll actually watch TV this way)...

This one might capture the crawling pose the best. Plus it's just downright cute...

Since he's learned to pull himself up to standing, he'll do it on pretty much any surface at any time. One of his favourite uses of the standing up is when he wakes up from his nap and wants to get out of his crib. Hey, it's the season premiere of Prison Break...

Here's Theo and Mommy. I was hoping for matching hats, but alas...

I include this shot because it has a funny--okay, sort of scary in a please-don't-call-child-protective-services kind of way. We thought the hat was so cute that we'd get a few shots of him in it. Of course, any photo shoot with Theo takes time, and so as we were snapping pictures, we neglected to realize how close to the edge of the bed he was getting...

You can guess what happened next. Fortunately, the distance from bed to ground is small, and that happens to be the only room in the house with some very plush carpet, so everything was fine. Except a crying fit ensued. But who could blame him? Fortunately, no adverse effects for anyone (except near-fatal heart attacks for mom and dad). I am, however, expecting massive therapy bills at some point later in life.

Now that I'm getting "tsked" at by many (I can almost hear them from here), let's move on. Here he is, just hanging out in the highchair...

This one's a little, well, weird. It reminds me of a somewhat deranged clown...

Is it possible to be "somewhat" deranged? Sounds like a survey; "How deranged do you feel: not at all deranged, somewhat deranged, or very deranged?" I think it's like being pregnant--you are or you aren't; there's no "sort of." Anyway, this next one is one of my favourites for this week. It's his newest expression...

What is this, an R. Kelly video?

"Hey, guys!"

Okay, that last reference might be a little too abstruse--he's in a closet. Get it?

Last but not least, the videos! As I mentioned, I tried to get crawling on video this week, but had no luck. As a result, the video count is low this week--I only have one to share with you. It's a good one, but nonetheless, it's only one. But I know you've come to expect more from this blog in terms of quality, so I've included a little blast from the past in here as well. Enjoy!

Here's this week's video--drinking from a cup. My favourite cup at the house is, well, you'll see it, a nicely colourful striped one. I like it because it holds a lot of water, which means less having to fill it up. Anyway, Theo likes it a lot, too, and because he wants to do everything we do, he wanted to drink from it. It's amazing how well he did, and how excited he gets over simple things like this...



And here's the blast from the past. This is Theo at 20 days old, drinking from his bottle. It's amazing to me (and probably to you) to look back at these videos and think that it was only 8 months ago. Man, does it ever feel like a long time! Check out the size of his bottle in this one, and also the amount of very dark hair he had when he was born. *Note: Steph had no idea that I was filming a video here, which is why her talking doesn't seem to fit in the video. She was talking to her mom, who was off-screeen at the time.*



And that, my friends, concludes this week's tour. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed posting it. Don't forget to check out my Three Hills blog for daily musings about life in general, including incisive rants about TV commercials and other things. In reality, it's just a way for me to blow off steam, but hey, it's a good read, I think. We'll see you all back here next week at this time. Bye for now!