Standing up

I guess I haven't been doing a good job of keeping this thing updated whenever the baby does something new or posting photos... I think I'm going to blame Facebook for taking away some of my focus.

Instead of posting the following there, though, I thought about it (all weekend) and decided to wait until today to use this space for the following exciting news:

Lo and behold, my little baby boy can PULL HIMSELF UP.

On Friday, I put him in his crib so that I could go to the bathroom. This is what we (mostly) use the crib for, since he sleeps with us (or at bedtime, I put him down to sleep in his crib for an hour or two so I can watch TV or read or whatever, then I bring him to bed with me). Sometimes he'll take a nap in there, too. He has a few toys (mostly stuffed animals) to play with and his room and his crib are closer to the bathroom than the Pack & Play, which is out in the living room. Generally he's happy enough in there for a few minutes. He'll wait for you longer in the Pack & Play, which is in the (livelier) living room and has more interesting toys in it.

Anyway, this time I heard him fussing in his room while I was in the bathroom, so I hurried up to get out there and see what he was doing.

What he was doing was standing up. In his crib. Holding onto the side.

My little crawler (still has his tummy on the ground, army-man style) has decided that he wants to stand.

After that, it was all he wanted to do. I held him up while we played on the floor (he loves the Busy Zoo my friend Missy gave us, and standing up to play with it is a million times more fun that sitting down!). I held him up while I sat on the couch and he apparently got a kick out of just standing there, because there literally was nothing else going on except his own slight bouncing motion. Oh, OK, I might've been singing to him, too ("Daddy's gonna take us to the zooooo tomorrow, zoooo tomorrow, zooo tomorrow, daddy's gonna take us to the zooooo tomorrow..."). We've been listening to Pandora on the TV (very cool thing), set to a children's station, and for the most part, I actually really enjoy a lot of the children's music, which is mostly silly. I do silly quite well, it seems. The channel we chose also plays Disney songs (I wanna walk like you, talk like you...!) and oldies (JP loves when Mommy sings with "La Bamba." I love making up the words. Does anybody know the words to La Bamba?). It's fun. He's started giggling a little when something funny happens in the room (as opposed to just when I'm kissing or tickling him), and man, that little laugh is so precious. He takes a lot of serious photos (and my friends in the swimming class usually just see him big-eyed and a little awestruck) but my baby can laugh.

On Thursday, I spoke to his Daycare teacher, and she warned me that he would be getting more adventurous (they have a little ball pit in his room, and apparently he launched himself out of it). She was right. (She also said that "he picks up things very quickly," which of course made me very proud of my little man.)

I'm trying not to be an overly protective, nervous mom (Patrick lets him have too much water in the bathtub! But when I say something, he says, YOU take him swimming in a 30,000 gallon pool! My response ["OK, but we're not talking about what I do!"] didn't go over well, so now I just stay in the living room and let them play). I think that's going to have to be a learned behavior, because my natural inclinations appear to include fretting. Anyway, I'm working on it, I'm working on it.

My mom thinks he'll walk by the time he's 1.
That freaks me out a little!