Ready...Almost...Steps!

"Ready: I am going to let go of the chair and turn towards Mom, maybe even take a step out there and see how I do."

"Okay, I took a step, now do I think I can stay balanced? Maybe I had better crouch down in case I can't do it yet, I know crawling works. Hmmm. Sticking my tongue out helps me concentrate better."

"I did it! I even took a couple of steps! Look at me stay balanced. Mom thinks this is the greatest thing ever, I love how excited she gets when I try to walk."

I forget how all my kids have had a process to go through before they are ready to walk. I believe it's because we are such thinkers, especially me, I have to think through everything before I do it. Perhaps that is Cole's process as well. I would not say he's walking yet, (he's now 13-1/2 months old,) but he is definitely inching his way there every day! He has been standing alone well for the last few days, and I will catch him turning around and taking a few steps between things.

Oh, and he doesn't have to be walking to get into EVERYTHING! If you notice the mess to the left of him in the pictures above, that's my daily battle to try to clean up. Cole loves to get into the craft and art supplies. His favorite things are the crayons. He loves to choose different crayons and crawl around the kitchen holding one in each hand. Then he puts them in random places. The best was two nights ago when I was making dinner. He crawled over with a blue crayon and opened the cupboard to store it. What a surprise, he found an orange crayon already there! So he replaced the orange one with the blue one and found a new home for the orange one in the oven drawer slot. He gets very mad when he gets crayons stuck in the window well and can't pull them back out.

Cole is often trying to figure out how to use different objects. He has a hammer that pounds balls through holes so they roll down a ramp. He decided to see what it would be like to pound people with the hammer. So while I was reading Lexie and Gavin a story, Cole comes up and starts hitting each of us with the plastic hammer. Lexie responded with a yell, and while I was still trying to explain to her that he doesn't know better and is just curious, Cole tried to tap himself in the head with the hammer. After a disheartened cry, I think he learned that hammers aren't meant for hitting yourself!