Making Strides

Nick is playing in his playpen. I have to shut the door most of the way when he does this or else he gets upset watching Mommy walk by. It's been a lee-tle too quiet the last few minutes, so I peeked. He's lying on his side with his head snugly inside his fabric toy bin. Cozy. I can't get a picture of it because every time I get near him with this laptop (the only camera we have now) he tries to get to the computer and stops doing whatever was so cute.

While Erik and Xander drove Johanna to the airport this morning :(, I took Nick to the grocery store. He had a grand time, especially using his new pointing skill to touch my nose. For once, I had the bagger help us out to the car, so he pushed the cart with Nick riding in the front. I asked Nick, "Do you know how to say hi? Do you know how to wave?" After a few seconds, he actually smiled at the boy and raised a hand and moved it up and down. It's so hard at this stage to know what's coincidence and what's not, but here are some other things he did today: When we went to wake up Erik, he said clear as day, "Da-da!" He said the same thing when Erik walked out the door a few minutes ago to go to his second job. This morning I told him he had to say bye-bye to Aunt Johanna and when she picked him up, he took a big breath and said, "Bah!"

I have a feeling he's leaving the fussy phase behind and entering a really fun phase! Today he really got down to business and put a bunch of fishsticks and tortillas in his belly.  Xander is starting to be envious of Nick's meals and asks for the same foods. We're starting to merge into having similar meals. Nick will still pick up vegetables and sort of eat them, but he makes the most awful faces. I don't know if I posted this already, but Nick can now cruise down one side of the coffee table. He does it in stealth mode so we don't actually see him walking. Suddenly he's just down at the other end. I do see the studious look he gets on his face as he contemplates moving off the table toward something that catches his eye. He lets go, and to his dismay, plop! I catch him more than half the time, but I can't say 100% of the time. He doesn't like being put down on the floor to crawl anymore.

Xander wrote a whole page of X's today of his own volition! That makes me happy because I was going to spend the next couple of months helping him write his name and this gives us a head start. So far he insists he wants to write his full name, Alexander, which is going to make the whole process a little more painful I think. Oh well.