The Johnson's: Jul 20 - 26: Elin is WALKING!!!

I'm actually working on this blog entry towards the end of August; since I've gotten drastically behind on updating my blog, I am forced into a posting marathon! In the past few weeks, in addition to being very bad about posting to this blog, I've also gotten very bad about taking pictures related to the topics I wanted to talk about, so my pictures may seem rather random for the next few entries and I am missing some key photos. :)

The big event of this week is that Elin is WALKING!!! She took her first independent steps on Thursday, July 24! Kent was playing with her and Erik in the living room after work when I heard him yelling for me to come quick. When I got there, Elin was taking a few tentative steps all on her own! Over the next few days, she got really good at taking 2-4 steps all by herself, but she still much prefers to have someone hold her hands so that she can walk faster; she especially likes to lean forward and race around the house while Kent or I scramble to keep up with her as we hold her hands! We've had a really hard time getting any pictures of her walking that I could use for this blog. We do have a few videos, but I've never been able to successfully attached any videos to this site. Amy/Allen, I've seen that you both have posted videos to your blogs - how do you do it?!

Elin has learned to point to herself so that we will say her name and then she will point to us to hear our names. She usually does this with Kent (he was the one to teach her this trick), but she will do it for Erik and I as well. She also likes to point around the house to hear us tell her the names of any object in the path of her pointing finger. This week, sadly, she has stopped giving kisses. I've resorted to begging and bribing, but nothing seems to work. I hope this is a very short phase! A funny story about Elin this week is that she has walked out of her pants a few times. She has a pair of shorts that are in the 6-9 month size, but still have a huge waist compared to Elin. She was walking around the ottoman in the living room and the next thing I knew, her pants just fell down and she had stepped out of them. I got her dressed again (thinking that maybe she has pulled them down), but as I watched her walking along the furniture again, I saw her pants just fall down. Honestly, they didn't look like they were that loose. I don't know how that happened!

Erik turns 3 on Wednesday next week; the word "birthday" or "party" is heard in most of his conversations lately. He talks a lot about his train table that he is certain that he is getting for his birthday (and I'm pretty certain he's right!) He is beside himself with excitement and is sometimes rendered speechless over the wonder of what the day will bring. I'm feeling the pressure now - what can I do to make the day super special and fun for a 3-year old?!

However, Erik is also already playing the adult game of "I feel younger than my age says I am" - he has seriously regressed on several items in the last few weeks. I was worried about him regressing after Elin was born, but didn't expect that I would have to deal with it a WHOLE YEAR later. This past week, Erik has decided that he cannot feed himself, that he needs to be carried everywhere, that he sometimes needs me to hold both his hands and "help" him walk and that he cannot use the potty at all (every advancement we had made for potty training has gone down the toilet - ha, ha). Then, just when I'm ready to bang my head against that wall at having a helpless 3-year-old around, he will flip a switch and demand "Let me do it! I want to do it myself!". The flip-flopping can occur within seconds during the same conversation (aka battle). AARRGGHH! I think that I've taken more deep breaths and said more prayers for patience this past month than in my entire life (cumulatively)!

Here are some random photos from the past week: