Crawling toward Christmas

December was busy as we prepared to spend the holidays with family. J and I worked hard to finish out the semester and get our little home ready for guests and H spent much of his free time either tagging along on errands or working out.

H's December workouts focused on lots of squats, pull-ups, bicep curls, and some light weight lifting. He has become quiet adept at these various exercises after spending endless amounts of time perfecting each motion.

H found the easiest place to do bicep curls was with his bedroom door. He spent hours pulling the door open and then pushing it closed. When he was looking to take it up a notch he would angle his body in such a way as to get a good crunch going with his abs while doing his curls.

Pull-up and squats have been some of my favorite exercises to watch. At the beginning, each pull up was accompanied by lots of grunts and then a shriek of joy once H was standing. Then we would watch up as he slowly and deliberately squatted down to a sitting position. Sometimes you would see H very slowly lower himself but then abort the mission before sitting because he decided it was not going to work. He would quickly stand back up again and then start the whole process of sitting all over again. Pull up, stand, shriek, squat, sit, swim to a new piece of furniture and do the whole routine again.

Despite all of this strength training H was still swimming around the floors as opposed to crawling. It wasn't until Christmas day that he decided that crawling could be useful. So, H worked out all December and then finally crawled into Christmas.

A tree in the living room

I am running woefully behind in our blog updates but I still want to mark events as time passes. The first weekend in December we went to get our Christmas tree. The past few years we have gone down to a wonderful little family farm near Pescadero to cut down our own tree but this year we did not have that much free time, so we purchased a tree precut. H has been very respectful of the tree in our living room. Occasionally he will swim over and stroke the tree or gently pull the Christmas lights but for the most part our tree seems to be a totally normal fixture for H. We will see how he feels once it is removed in January.

Crunch, crunch, crunch

Crunch, crunch, crackle. The sound of dry leaves is everywhere and H loves it. It is fall here in California (yes, it feels like fall for those of us who grew up elsewhere in the country). This means lots of nice walks outside and frequent trips to the totpark near our home. Often our park visits start on a blanket on the grass where H gently picks up and examines fallen leaves before crunching them up in his little hands. I am always surprised at the fact that they leaves rarely make it into his mouth since almost everything else does.

After the leaf exploration there is time for H to look up at the trees and watch them sway. He simply love trees. He will watch them out the window of his room, he will smile at them at the park, he just loves trees.

Then H becomes adventurous enough to leave the blanket. He will pick his way across the blanket and onto the grass. It is so funny to watch his expression as he hits 'rougher' terrain. It is clear that he is a baby used to spending his days indoors as he tries to navigate the subtle bumps in the landscape. Eventually he makes it to the sidwalk and we head over to the swings.

With each trip on the swing H becomes more brave. On his first turn on the swing several weeks ago now, he was rather anxious and gripped the handles as hard as he could. The next time he gripped the seat as hard as he could, and so on until our last trip to the park when H got into the swing and just leaned back 'no hands' and enjoyed the ride.

H loves...

...to eat food in order of preference. H is able to feed himself now so we have a serving plate full of different foods and we give him a few pieces of each food on his own plate. He loves cheese and meat more than green veggies. Squash and sweet potatoes come after cheese and meat. But he loves above all else...banana.

...to look at trees.  When we are on a walk or at the park, H will spend a good portion of his time with his head back looking at the trees. He likes to look at the different types of trees and watch them sway in the wind. Often he will give a small smile while he tree watches.

...to play ball games. H will swim up to a ball and pick it up and then toss it. Once the ball has rolled away he eagrly swims after the ball and then does the whole thing over again.

...to play crawling games. We will get down on the floor and pretend to crawl away from him and then turn around and crawl toward him and kiss and tickle him. This is a hugely popular past time.

...books. He loves to read them and eat them. One of his favorites right now is "One Duck Stuck". If you ask him if he wants to read "One Duck Stuck" you actually get an audible "yes" sound as he starts to look around for the book.

...bath time. No matter what H's mood pre-bath time as soon as his little body hits the water he is smiling and as happy as a clam.

...music. Whenever we turn on music during a meal or during playtime H will stop and find the source of the music and then start bopping along and smiling. He loves to watch us dance and try to move as well.

...his parents. Whenever he is hungry, sleepy, or wanting comfort, H will search us out. He is a wonderful little person to snuggle with.

Where did it go?

Oh...there it is!

Swimming...

I am trying to get some video footage of H swimming but until then these still shots will have to do. You can see how happy he is about his recently aquired skill. He saw the camera and instantly started moving toward it.

New Shoes!

Hendrick got his first pair of shoes last weekend! Since he is now swimming around from room to room he finds it frustrating to be in socks because he doesn't get enough traction. Unfortunately we are not able to keep our apartment at a toasty, sock free, seventy-five degrees like the Nido, so we must settle for leather shoes that provide a little traction. As you can see by the photo as soon as they were on H's feet, he started sucking on them. There is nothing that does not end up in his mouth right now! With shoes on, H is happily swimming around our home regularly pushing off with his feet. He looks like he is doing a cross between the breaststroke and the butterfly. I can't wait to see what he will be like when he is crawling!