13 months

The Charliebug is 13 months today. Already into his second year of life...

Charlie really seems ready to take on the world these days. He gets into everything, and he's darn quick (more on that later). He has taken cans, bottles, granola bars and more off the lower shelves of my pantry, anything he can lift out of cabinets (post-it notes are great fun), and find the smallest speck of lint on any floor. When left alone in the bathroom with an open toilet for approximately 2.3 seconds, he managed to get about 8 squares of toilet paper into the toilet. He's an explorer, that's for sure.

That's cornmeal on his nose and lips in the picture below; after he managed to pry the lid off the canister while I thought he was safely playing in the "baby-proofed" pantry.

Charlie seems very close to walking; he stands on his own for a long time, and can get himself into a standing position with the slightest thing to push himself up on (even a book!). He officially took his first steps on Easter Sunday, and has repeatedly taken 2 or 3 steps at a time to get from the ottoman to the couch, or from me to Scott. But that's about all he wants to do!

Perhaps he doesn't want to walk because he's so darn fast when he crawls. And yes, he is still doing his special crawl, although we're noticing more of a traditional crawl when he's on the carpet. He saves the one-legged crawl for when he can slide the leg on the hardwood floor and really get some speed. Or the driveway... his pants are going to be worn out very oddly. My dad took this video a few weeks ago - I think it's a pretty good illustration of how quickly he can get from point A to point B.



So yes, we still spend a lot of time walking around the house with him holding onto our fingers - not the best for our backs, but he loves it. I truly hope he walks soon though... now that we're finally having some spring-like weather, I'd like to be outside with Charlie without thinking about all the things he's crawling through and on before his fingers inevitably end up in his mouth. Yuck.

Let's see, what else. I mentioned in a different post how much Charlie loved the play/musical Pinkalicious. He tends to have the same reaction every time he hears music - he grins and starts doing his own "Charlie-dance." I've tried to capture it many, many times, especially once when he was doing his moves while Zach was hammering out a beat on my tupperware. But he always stops when he sees the video camera! What you see at the beginning of the video below is his dance; I caught a little bit of it at our ECFE class last week. He was really boogie-ing away that day, completely entertaining all the other moms. :)

Sleep-wise, I have been tempted many, many times to get out some graph paper and see what this boy's waking times look like when charted. I've resisted the urge so far, but I am imagining that the graph would look like a roller coaster. For a while we had those lovely 4:30 AM wakings, then it progressively got a little later until he was sleeping as late as 7 AM. Then it started creeping earlier again, and now we've been in a holding pattern around 5 - 5:30. Good thing I'm a morning person, I guess.

We're hearing a constant stream of babble now too. Lots of interesting sounds, and occasionally we think we've heard a certain word ("all done"!), but I'm not ready to say Charlie has uttered his first official word. Soon, though I suspect.

Charlie definitely wants to play with the big kids too - he loves it when the neighbors come over. If he's inside, he'll go to the screen door and stand and watch them, squealing and laughing and babbling at them. If he's outside - he gets right in the middle of the game, laughing and talking to his friends. We keep telling him you have to walk before you can play kickball, but that doesn't seem to stop him.

Charlie "celebrated" his 13th month of life with a nice injury to his face this morning. Sigh. I have learned my lesson - the wooden "percussion instruments" (basically thick sticks you bang together or rub against each other to make various noises) have been hidden for a while. Charlie gave Zach quite the whack on the top of his foot - the bony part... ouch! Zach hesitated for a second, while crying, but before I could get there he'd delivered the retaliatory smack to the face with the spine of the book he was reading. Fortunately it was a paperback...

I know there's lots more of this coming, so I guess I should be happy it took 13 months.

I'll close by asking - has anyone ever seen a baby do this:

A lot? In addition to standing on his head, which I mentioned earlier, he often stops mid-crawl to put his head down, a lot of times with his hands on his head like this. Isn't he a little young for migraines???