New Skills

No wonder our guy has been so fussy lately. He's working on some new skills!
Today he showed us that he can stack the plastic rings instead of just take them apart! Of course, taking them apart is still really fun. But it's fun to stack them, too.

And today he's got a new sign. "Water." Now, our version looks like this. But his looks more like his hands on his face. We've been working with this sign in particular for a few days, and it seems like he's got it. Sometimes he uses this sign for "all done" or "down" but when we don't know what he means, we figure it out soon enough. He's thrilled when we say "oh, do you want some water?" after he signs it.

Some days he eats a lot and most days he doesn't. Today: big food day. Lots of cheese. We're learning the "cheese" sign too!

And, yes, when Ian sees the camera, he smiles. All the time. He doesn't smile quite this often in real life. He makes faces when he talks to things and has all kinds of expressions. I just can't get them very often. I finally got a less-flattering pic. Sorry, Ian. Had to share.

How do you get down from a step?

The answer? Silly Mommy. You get down from a Duck!

I've been meaning to get a video of this for some time. Ian's got a great skill. Check it out.



Sorry it's so shaky. When he's pretty tired, he sometimes will underestimate and flop over the step sideways. I still always spot him when going outside like this, but not always when in the bedroom coming down off of the mattress on the floor. But 99% of the time, he does get it right. It's not even how we showed him - we showed him doing it completely backwards. He just figured that he didn't need to be completely backwards. Such a smart boy!!

Ian has shown interest in crawling up the wood stairs in the living room, too. We have to watch that!

Toys

How did the toys multiply so much? We have great toys for Ian, and we have neighbors, friends, and family to thank for that. Here's a picture where the mat is relatively intact (his favorite thing lately is to rip it to shreds).

Here you can see "Reginald the Hedgehog" (Reggie the Hedgie for short). I'll get a proper picture of him soon. I think he's going to be left relatively unstuffed and be more of a puppet. He has a hole that needs to be repaired and he needs to be felted just a bit more. I'm so happy with him.

But there are lots of toys! For our sanity, I think maybe we'll box up some of them and put them away. That way we can rotate them and when we bring them out they'll be fresh, interesting, and new. And we won't have so many tripping hazards in the living room!

See the basket? That's the toy bin. He likes to empty it. I think chaos theory applies to children. They tend toward entropy!

PS: Tooth Number 7 has made an appearance! His lower left lateral incisor. Say that 7 times fast!
And: Ian's newest big skill is backing down off of the bed in his room. He's a pro at it. Sometimes he still topples a little bit, but usually when he's a bit clumsy with a big diaper and jammies on, or there's a blanket in the way. I need to get video.