The Boy Without Fear

Xander's main purpose in moving seems to be to move up. He's happiest when we put him on the bed or couch to roam around. He loves the stairs. Unfortunately, he doesn't understand gravity. Or the need to have something under his butt when he tries to sit.

So here are a couple of bins of my school supplies. He climbed right up and had a ball (while I eyeballed the butt-to-floor falling distance).

Muah-ah-ah-ah-ah!

1 tooth!
2 teeth!
3 teeth!
4 teeth!
5 teeth!
6 teeth!
7 teeth!
8 teeth!
9 teeth!
10!
10 teeth!

Yesterday, Xander and I made our weekly Target trip. This week he discovered that it's more fun to face forward in the cart than to sit quietly facing Mom. And what's more fun than that? Standing up while facing forward!

Well, he was so cute and excited about this that I undid the safety belt and walked around pushing the cart with one hand and holding onto his pants with the other. Xander stood in the seat with his hands on the back of the cart seat and just bounced away with a huge grin.

Of course when I actually needed both hands and tried to get him sitting and buckled, he threw a high pitched fit. And still managed to turn around (despite tightening the safety belt). And continued the fit when he couldn't stand up. Suddenly, grocery trips with him aren't looking quite as fun.

Do the Wave

Pray that you don't run into me with Xander. Because I will repeatedly make him wave at you. Oh, sometimes I have to help him get started. But then he smiles and flaps his arm away. And when he gets really excited about you waving and saying "Hi!" he'll add in his own "Iii!"

Last night at dinner I would tilt my head to the side and he would tilt his too.

I feel like I should be giving Xander some Scooby snacks.

Busted

Xander had his first split lip yesterday. He was cruising along the couch one handed, the other hand having a death grip on his elephant. I was sitting right there, but he just toppled over and landed face first on his little chair then toppled some more to the ground.

I picked him up and he stopped crying within 30 seconds. But there was a little blood in his mouth. It wasn't enough to make me freak out (Ohmigosh, he's going to bleed to death! Quickly, to Maxwell the Malibu!) but enough to completely puzzle me (Is it his lip? Tooth? Tongue? Gums? Tonsils?). And with his cold, he is tired of me messing with his face, so he kept pushing me away while I was looking (Geez Mom, I'm tough and you're making me look bad in front of Elephant). After cleaning away the blood and seeing the lip swelling, I figured it out.

Here's a lovely picture of it. Plus there's the added bonus of snot!

Wow, that's a lot of snot

Xander's had a cold for the past couple of weeks. It was just a snotty nose for the first week, then it cleared up for a few days. Then it came back with a vengeance. There has been runny nose, coughing, sneezing, wheezing and sadness. The worst is he isn't smiling. It's so sad when I go out and people notice him and he doesn't smile. It makes me want to hug and squeeze him.

-------

This weekend we found a Leapfrog table at a garage sale. I guess it's just as good as a Learning Home. He loves the music on it and turning the 'page' on the book. His favorite thing to do is dance to the alphabet. Xander is also figuring out how to look under things and to crawl under and/or through things. It started with realizing that Ainsley was hiding under his crib. I pointed her out and he slowly lowered himself down and turned his head to lay on the ground. Now he's going under chairs and yelling when he hits his head. We also have to keep hauling out from under the end table in the back room (he tries to crawl through it to get the the cords behind it).

Here he is yesterday getting stuck crawling though the book shelf. He was wearing a cloth diaper, so I guess he didn't realize how big his butt was. I had to turn him sideways and push him the rest of the way through.