Monkey House

Tonight we decided to take Cole to a restaurant. We were invited to join a group of folks (including several children) eating at Hino’s Japanese restaurant on Wellington, and I think we both felt it was high time to get out of the house for part of an evening. As the decision was made, it occurred to me that I wasn’t that worried about Cole after all.

Mealtime at home is usually a period of relative peace. In his highchair with a bit of food, that little sucker chills out pretty good. I was picturing a restaurant outing going fairly similarly, and I’m afraid to say (for the purposes of comedy that is) that it went as I pictured. To us, we could tell he was getting tired and a bit cranky-pants. But to the rest of the world he was this calm, happy, funny (and CUTE) little guy. As people often say, “remarkably well adjusted.” All it took was a bit of walking around, a bit of bread to nibble on, and he was distracted from his own growing grumpiness.
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Today marks the day that Cole is 41 weeks 1 day old, which means that he has been out as long as he was in. Hard to believe isn’t it? Our little man has completely changed out lives in the very best way possible. Not a day goes by that we don’t find ourselves with huge smiles on our faces just watching him or commenting on how lucky we are to have such a cute and wonderful kid. Not every moment has been easy but I’m so blessed to have a most excellent, helpful and supportive husband. Babe I’m so happy to be sharing our lives together, seeing you with our son makes me love you even more than I thought possible.

Everyone tells you that kids grow up so fast and while you believe them you don’t truly understand until it is your little one transforming before your eyes. From a surprisingly big 9lbs1oz at birth to 22lbs at his 9 month check up he is growing like a weed. He now has 2 cuttie bottom chompers and is working on the top 2 right now(I have the bags under my eyes to prove it) and how about those amazing skills of a crawler he has developed in the last month or so? Any bets on when he starts walking?

Here are some pics from the last 9 months, can’t wait to see what comes next!

Something pretty fun happened this morning (though I think the below video says “tonight” for some reason):

I was recounting a Dilbert comic strip to Alex (one that’s appropriate to my workplace persona) in which a character goes “Tra la la la la la!” While telling Alex about it, the little guy was crawling around on the floor out of eye contact with me. He must’ve thought the sound was neat, especially since he couldn’t see me making it, so he started repeating it!

It was even better than what we captured on video, but this is pretty close. Sorry for the quality; was more focused on the microphone part than actually aiming it at anything in particular.

In theory, the idea is to give the monkey a bit more independence and freedom.

After all, he’s not only crawling now, but pulling himself up to standing, and beginning to “transfer” from one handhold to the next. He’s not quite doing a lateral shuffle yet, but rather getting his hands from where they are at “point A” to a new handhold at “point B” and then bringing his feet along for the ride. Once he starts doing it the other way around, it’ll be only a matter of weeks before walk-stumbling and then walk-headbanging and then walking.

But in practice, it’s time to jail that sucker in.
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I heard it from any number of parents: “something just clicks, and away they go.”

Happened over the weekend for the Monkey. He understood that using his hands and knees was more efficient than the army crawl, for movement and also for seeing and grabbing things. In pretty much the same ‘play session’ he also discovered pulling himself to standing.

So, we not only have a little guy who can motor from point A to point B in seconds (whereas before it took ages if he could get there at all), but once he’s at point B, he will grab at anything of a reasonable height and try to pull himself up.

You think to yourself, “When he can entertain himself a bit more, I’ll be able to sort of catch some TV or sort of play some video games while he’s playing.”

Nuh-uh.
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