Baby steps! (not so baby post)

Seth has been really taking strides ;) with his mobility lately and today was one for the record books. When I got home from work he was standing up holding on to the couch so I crouched down a few feet away and asked him to come say hi. He is always really excited to see me after work so he was highly motivated. He let go of the couch, wobbled a little, and took a tiny little step with his left foot. Then he took another tiny little step with his left foot. Then he took ANOTHER tiny step with his left foot. All with no hands! Then he dropped to his knees and stomped over to me. So proud of my little guy! Alright, so it's not technically walking but it is so darn close. Later in the evening he did it again. Just the left foot still but this time it was a much bigger step, probably the equivalent of the first three combined. I'm guessing we'll have some real walking here within a week or so. Yikes! He's also quite the climber and is always trying to crawl out of my lap and over the back of the couch. Nana says 9 months is way too young to be walking because kids are so dumb at that age. No fear baby!


Above is the little Samurai suit Natalie picked up in Hong Kong. So adorable!

We took Seth to the Spokane County Fair back in September, Geez I am so behind! The reason I bring it up actually is just to note that around that time Seth suddenly started getting startled by loud noises. We had stopped to watch the kids' tractor pull and I had Seth in the Moby wrap. Well there was quite a crowd cheering the kids on and all of a sudden I noticed Seth was FREAKING out and crying. We moved away from the chaos and he calmed down right away. He also had a poopy diaper so I'm sure that wasn't helping. Here we are checking out a hot tub, before he got upset of course.


Since then he has also gotten upset once when I cheered him on for going on the potty, more on that later, as well as tonight when Natalie and I cheered him on for taking a step. So not sure what that is about but I'll have to try to be more sensitive to his feelings because my natural instinct is to laugh at him for some reason. Mother of the year, right here!



One of his favorite games right now is hide and go seek. Eric or I will get down on our hands and knees and crawl out of sight. He loves to come "find" us and laughs hysterically when he does. It is so much fun! One of my favorite sounds in the world now is the pitter patter of little hands on the carpet with him panting with the effort. This is a good activity to do in the hour or so before bedtime, it really seems to wear him out. After awhile he takes frequent breaks with his head down on the floor. Then of course he seems to sleep really well after that.


Eric observed that he's so much more grown up in his sleeping habits these days, like a "real boy." Whereas when he was little of course you would lay him down in his crib and there he would stay, now we find him in all sorts of crazy positions. He moves around a LOT during the night. Last night he was flat on his back in the center of his crib with both arms sticking straight out perpendicular to his body (above). Eric says I am playing with fire taking pictures like that. Flash and everything, but he didn't move a muscle.

He is also very good at finding his pacifier and has it in his mouth a lot more than he used to. When he is with me he very rarely gets it unless it's bedtime or naptime. Daddy is a little more lenient and occasionally he'll get it to tide him over while he waits for me to get home from work to feed him. By the way I have since replaced the bumper on the back side of the crib so that outlet is not so tempting. I was also trying to deter him from pushing the pacifiers right out through the rails, but no he still just drops them over the top, little stinker. Whenever it seems like we are running low I can just pull the crib out from the wall and gather them up. Of course he rarely throws them towards the middle of the room where I can easily retrieve them.


He has now peed while sitting on the toilet TWICE. The first time 100% of it went on my pants and the floor. The second time about 50% actually went IN, sweeeeet! I have been taking him into the bathroom right when he gets up from his nap if his diaper is still dry. He usually looks at me like I'm crazy but I think he will figure it out eventually. Even if it saves us one diaper a week, that is something. He pooped in no less than FIVE of them today, 4 of them on daddy's shift. Haha, that's my boy! We have sort of made the switch to Huggies because I got a super awesome deal on them at Rite Aid. We tried them out this week and they fit awesome (the Pure & Natural size 4). The Pampers Baby Dry size 3 we ran out of and they seemed kind of tight anyway, but the size 4's are a little big and have leaked a few times. My big kiddo was 21.6 lbs as of yesterday but I suppose a little less today after all his poops. He is still legal up to 22 lbs in his original Chicco car seat although we did get a convertible too, which we love. But I'll be sad when we have to keep moving it back and forth from Eric's car to mine. Right now we have one in each which is really convenient.


It seems like everyone I know is posting pumpkin patch pictures, so I better jump on the bandwagon while I have a minute. We took Seth 2 weeks ago up in Greenbluff and I think he had a pretty good time. Lots to see. I might post a few more pictures from that day later.



Well this post was originally intended just to report on the walking. But I've been killing time waiting for a scheduled database backup to complete so I can do a server upgrade. And now the time has come. Nighty night! Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end of this monster post.