neighborhood adventure

Yesterday Alex was out front with Daddy showing off his new walking skills when he decided he wanted to take a little hike. So off they went across the street...


down the sidewalk...


through the rocks...


across the grass...


up a hill...


and some stairs...


until he finally reached the play set (which is about 100 yards from our house)!


And then he was ready to come home.

he walks!

At almost 14 months I think we can officially say we have a walker! Alex technically took his first steps a little over a month ago but the progress has been slow and sporadic (by sporadic I mean when somebody other than me is with him) at best, which is funny considering everybody swore he was going to take off running the minute he figured it out. Apparently our little dare devil is afraid of something after all. Week before last Ben took him to open gym at Gymboree where they basically get free reign of a big padded room full of steps, slides, tunnels, teeter-totters...you get the idea. They'd been there about 15 minutes when Ben called to tell me that Alex was all over the place, taking 10 to 11 steps at a time. Of course he was...because I wasn't there! Two days later it was the same story from my mom. Then Ben left for 5 days and I am not exaggerating when I say Alex took maybe 10 steps the whole time he was gone. Ben comes home and what do you know? He's walking all over the place. Without bribes or coercion even! Granted it's still just from one object to another but sometimes he even gets back up and keeps walking when he falls rather than just continuing on hands and knees. And as you can tell, he's quite proud of himself. Can you blame him?!

starting him out early

Ben loves to tell everyone how his dad had him out on the riding mower when he was just 3 years old (or was it 2?). I believe his parents will tell you he was more like 5 or 6. Well eat your heart out Grampa G because we've got Alex training for his yard duties at just 13 months!

OK, OK the real story is that we were out in the garage supervising as Ben hung some new shelves and Alex got a bit antsy just sitting in the stroller. As anybody who's been around him in the last 5 months knows he loves to push things around so of course being in the garage the mower was an obvious target. Not only can he push it, he can back it up, turn, and maneuver it pretty well! And trust me, it's not easy! He "mowed" past 3 houses and back, pushed it back up the driveway, and parked it in the garage. All that hard work and the 101* heat made for one thirsty boy!

Speaking of walking (sort of), Alex has been making great strides (ha ha) in the past 2 days. He's now up to 10 or 11 independent steps at a time and even initiates it himself (as opposed to being bribed and coerced)! I suspect we'll have an official walker on our hands any day now...

uh ooooooh

Alex first picked up the concept of "uh oh" in March. Back then it came out more like "uh-uh". It was really more of a sound than a word or phrase but he did use it in the right context. The first time he did it I wasn't quite sure I'd heard right so I picked up the book he had just dropped and of course he did it again. Typical Mom, I was overjoyed with this "advance" in communication and he could tell so we repeated the exercise at least a hundred and one times that day (we were on a plane to Minnesota so what else did we have to do?) This continued for a few weeks and then he apparently tired of "uh uh" because it pretty much disappeared from his repitoire. Until last week. I can't even tell you how it started again but all we hear is "uh oooooh" all the time. And it sounds like a real "word"! You can actually hear his little voice! We obviously think it's pretty cute.

baby signs

We've been trying to teach Alex a little bit of sign language for a while now. It started with me pumping my hand open and closed in front of his face (the sign for "milk") while nursing from about 6 months on. But as with everything else, he seems to be on his own schedule as far as putting it to his own use. So we signed up for a Baby Signs class thinking some formal instruction and interaction may help things along. Today was our 3rd session and the theme was bath time so of course it was a huge hit. Not only did class involve water (everyone wore their suits), there were bubbles too! Alex was most definitely in heaven. Some of the kids were a bit apprehensive about the mini blow-up pool but it didn't take Alex much time to start splashing and eventually "jump" right in (he was the only one to actually get in the pool). We've also done meal time which consisted of a pretend picnic and bed time where everyone wore their pj's.


So after 3 weeks of Sign, Say, and Play how's Alex's signing coming along? Well he's still using a double-handed "milk" motion for almost everything and there's still lots of pointing and "da!" or "da?" going on but we sure have something fun to look forward to every Wednesday morning. Plus Alex's new friend Peyton is there AND Mommy has a whole new set of catchy tunes to keep her up at night!