Just Barely Keeping Up

Now that James is officially crawling, many developmental dominoes are falling one after the other - and we're just barely keeping up with him! Every day it seems there's something new.

• He crawls efficiently and can reach the cat's water in less than a minute.
• He can easily go back and forth from crawling to sitting.
• He's made some efforts to pull up on furniture and in his crib.
• He now eats all kinds of soft foods that he can feed himself: cheese, fruits, gerber cereal puffs.
• He's working on his pincer grasp to pick up food and fuzz from the floor.
• He drinks from several kinds of sippy cups and grown-up cups.
• He likes to play and splash in the bath.
• He finds his pacifiers and puts them in his mouth when he wants them.
• He seems to be trying to stand up by himself sometimes.
• He likes to be "walked" - just hold his hands and he'll step his feet.

With all of these new motor skills, we had a few rough days of very light sleeping and night-waking, but James has been back to his usual good sleeping habits this week. He's also been having fun new experiences with and without Mom and Dad. Awww, he's growing into a real boy!

• He regularly goes to the park on nice days with his daycare group.
• Last week Sandra took the kids to see the circus elephants walk through town on the way to the venue. He came home with a Barnum & Bailey sticker!
• On Friday, I took a day off work and took him to the pool with some other neighborhood moms. James had a great time! He loved looking at all of the people and was totally relaxed in the water (except when he was having fun splashing!)
• He went to his first birthday party this past weekend and tried cake and ice-cream (both were big hits.)

Mark and I have really been falling down on the job of taking photos and videos this week. Since I don't have much new material - how about a iPhone photo retrospective? I always have my phone nearby and manage to catch some nice candids. These pics and videos are all from the last couple of months: