And he's off!

This guy took his first steps this week. Ella and Charlotte actually witnessed it first. They ran to tell me that he took steps all by himself, and truthfully, I wasn't sure exactly what they witnessed. But sure enough, a couple of hours later, he walked a step or two for me.

This is really one of the most fun stages of childhood. Kids learn so much so fast at this age. In addition to walking he has started talking, which is always a nice skill to have. I have lists of Ella's first words lovingly recorded in her baby book. Max will have to make do with a blog post.

He says:
Hi
Ella (both Ella and Charlotte are called this.)
Amen (after, and often during a prayer.)
Good (As in, "how are you ?", he answers "good", except it sounds like 'guh')
Tada! (This was his first word. He learned it from Ella, who does alot of magic tricks.)
"Rawr" means animal
"Mwah" means kiss
I count the last two as words because he consistently uses them to convey a concept... But we didn't exactly teach him those.

He does kiss us, frequently and passionately, with his mouth wide open and his tongue sticking out. If Paul and I kiss while I'm holding Max, he insists upon a follow-up kiss with each of us. He is such an affectionate kid. We all just dote on him. Everybody does, actually.  He is such a flirt. He loves to make eye contact with people and then half hide his face while giving them a coy smile. He spends a lot of time waving to strangers, so I get a lot of waves back from random people. Its quite fun. I've never had such a social baby.

And there you have it, folks. The highlight reel for Maxwell J at 11 months. 

Habitats

All three of my children can successfully pick up a moving potato bug. But, admittedly, I try to keep Max from doing so, since I don't have confidence in his concept of 'being gentle'. Plus, it is only a matter of time before he tries to eat one. He does 'rawr' at them. He is basically the cutest thing ever.

We are buying a house. We close at the beginning of July, and we're pretty excited about it. After six months of searching, it was time.

Yea for habitats.

Bugs

When asked Nature vs. Nurture, I am a Nature woman all the way. (Or at least most of the way.)

I could write for days about this, but sufficeth to say, I think most of our kids' choices are a reflection on themselves and not their parents.

But on the subject of bugs, I have triumphed over Nature, and taught my children to like bugs. Or, at least I taught Charlotte.  Ella has always liked bugs (Nature again). Charlotte, however, has been known to do the high-pitched squeal of terror when encountering even the most harmless of insects. I have worked very hard to stamp that out, and this is a picture of her and Ella passing a potato bug back and forth. The bug is not visible, so you will just have to trust me on this one.

Mission accomplished.

Lists

Ella has started spelling words without help, which has been a fun development. She made me a shopping list today, and I thought I'd share it.

Pees (peas)
Prokulee (broccoli)
Flars (flowers)
Pikshs (peaches)
Snoflaxe (snowflakes)
Hrse (horse)

I like that most of the list is reasonable, and then she snuck in horse at the end. Like being part of a reasonable list legitimizes the request.

Nice try.

Vay-cay

Living it up in Brownsville this week. Yep. You read that right. Brownsville.

But, in all seriousness, we are having a lovely time. Exactly what I was looking for in a vacation. With the added bonus of catching glimpses of Mexico every time we drive to or from our hotel.

Yes. We are very close to the border.

But all I wanted in my life was a beach and swimming weather. And this was a win on both counts.

Beach day yesterday. Park, pool, and movie day today. Life is so good.

Summer is here!

Maybe.

We are supposed to have a high of 57F tomorrow. So I guess it depends on how you define 'summer'.

But today is 80F and we are out catching ladybugs and examining ant piles. So no complaints.

Super pumped.

I don't know why I get so excited about my children drawing people. But I do. Charlotte officially draws humans.

Well, human-like figures.

Yay for developmental milestones!

On Mobility.

It has been a long journey for my little guy.  Back in November he started pivoting himself around while laying on his tummy, and not long after that developed the "scoot and roll" where he would combine pivoting and rolling to achieve short distances.  I was sure crawling would soon follow, but month after month after month showed me that I was wrong.

Finally, a month or two ago, he started army crawling, combined with spending long-ish periods of time on his hands and knees.  Now, I thought, crawling is imminent.  But after several weeks of waiting, he then progressed to army crawling to the couch and pulling himself to standing.

By this time, I had pretty much given up on cross-crawling.  But this week he decided to crawl.  The very first crawl I witnessed was last Saturday morning when I got home from an activity and he crawled to greet me.  It was not very far.  But slowly he has improved his technique, and he's getting pretty good.  He still goes back and forth between crawling and army crawling, and sometimes he starts cross-crawling somewhere and gets distracted half-way through and finishes the journey with an army crawl.  It's pretty cute.

So now he's a champ at pulling himself to standing on whatever he can find, and I swear he's trying to stand up without holding on to something, too.  He seems pretty far from accomplishing that goal, but as it turns out, I sort of stink at predicting his developmental milestones, so I guess we'll just wait and see. :)

Photo: Ella and Charlotte at this cool aquarium we went to for a homeschool field trip.

Spotify.

You may have heard of it. We love it. For a few dollars a month, spotify will stream any song you can think of to your mobile device.

This means our children are crazy spoiled, because they can just ask for songs of any theme and I can usually find something. "A horse song, Mom!" (I went through the desert on a horse with no name) You get the picture.

They have also developed their own taste in music. Today Charlotte asked for "Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-ra Ann" (Yes, she used all the syllables.) Ella regularly requests Willie Nelson. And the Mommas and the Papas.

They also request many tunes that drive me nuts. My mom gave me some speech therapy CDs that they LOVE. But I hate.

But I made them a deal a few months ago, that if they would buckle themselves in, I would let them choose the music. And they keep buckling themselves in. And I am just glad to not have to climb back there every time we go somewhere. So I keep up my side of the bargain, too.

P.S. Isn't he the most beautiful baby you've ever seen?

I just love him.

On Tuesday Evening.

Charlotte (holding an oral thermometer, talking to Paul): Can I stick this in your ear? Then I can tell you what time it is. Thanks, Dad. Oh! (reading the thermometer) It's Thursday!