It's February 14th...

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

We got him a car!

And just look under that hood!  What power!  It's a three shape cylinder - circle, square, AND triangle!  It's got a radio and rear wheel drive for those difficult situations, and he loves it!  the bad news?  He can really motor through the house now!

To Calvin, who is eight months old today!

Holy moly! the past month just flew by!  Every time we think that you have learned all you can for the time being and must be ready to take some time off, you surprise us.   You finally learned to truly crawl, in a forward manner while up on all fours, when you were about seven and a half months old.  That same day you started sitting yourself up from a laying down position.  The following weeks were just full of progress for you.  Your crawling has become very smooth and purposeful and your favorite things to crawl after are, of course, the pets.  You have also gotten much better at cruising and can walk the entire distance of the house while pushing your red toy wagon in front of you.  You never miss a chance to pull yourself up and cruise along and you have gotten very good at getting both up and down.  We are so very proud of you!  With your newfound mobility some other changes have taken place in our household.  We finally had to move you out of your bassinet in our room and into your crib in your own room.  You were a very good sport about that change and you now sleep completely through the night. 

There have been some other changes as well.  We decided to start putting you to bed awake, both at night and for naps, and letting you put yourself to sleep, at which you have really proven to be a champion at bed time, but are more stubborn about during naps now that you prefer to cruise around your crib and play with your toys instead. And you now eat three meals a day, eating when we eat. We have added barley cereal, butternut squash, apple, and banana to your menu, and you are working on being able to pick up pieces of those foods and put them in your mouth.  Unfortunately, most of them are slippery and are very hard to get a-hold of!  And the last big change that we have made is the introduction of discipline to your day.  Now that you are so busy and so mobile we have had to start telling you "no" when you become interested in something you shouldn't have.  You don't like being told that you can't do something, but so far you have been very compliant.  You no longer even try to touch the stereo or the dogs' dishes, and we are very proud of you for being so smart and so easy to get along with!  This new stage in your life is a very fun one, for us and for you!

Cruise control

Calvin has been getting exponentially more comfortable with his physical movement. You might say he's advancing by leaps and bounds (or is that by crawls and cruises?). See for yourself!

There's no getting away from him now!

Wow it's amazing what a difference just a few days can make.  Last week you could set Calvin in his carefully baby-proofed room with some toys and head into the bedroom to get yourself dressed for the day, or head to the kitchen to wash a few dishes, or start the laundry.  Whatever the task, we never left him long, but we always knew where he'd be when we went back.  In fact, the farthest he might move was from sitting to laying, or maybe a couple of rolls away, but not so much now.  Now if you leave him in his room and go to get dressed you're likely to be snuck up on long before you are done.  Thankfully the house is mostly baby-proofed now, though there are a handful of things that are still out, like the dogs' dishes and Jon's music.  The new word of the week has been "no," and we've been pleasantly surprised by Calvin's reaction, which is this:  First he looks at you, pauses, then sits back away from the [fill in the blank], screws up his face, turns beet red, then starts screaming and crying with frustration.  Okay, we're not really pleased with the actual reaction so much as the fact that he does respond that way 95% of the time.