Erik seems to learn something new every single day. He is growing and changing so much. August was an especially busy month for him and September is gearing up to be much the same.
He started out the month by accomplishing the feat of standing on his very own on Thursday, August 2. He had been practicing that skill for a few weeks with the few push/walker toys that we've brought into the house and by having Mommy & Daddy hold his hands and walk him everywhere! He ended the month by taking his very first steps on Monday, August 27. Amazingly, Kent had his phone out and was able to video Erik's major milestone. I've attached the video below; the light is a bit dark due to the lights in our room not all being on.
Other accomplishments that Erik achieved this month include having his first "adult" meal with spaghetti and peas (Aug 21); he can pick up and hold his beach ball with just one hand - maybe we have a future basketball player (Aug 22); he is learning how to put caps back onto the bottles that surround Mommy's sink (Aug 23). He also loves to put blocks or other toys into containers, truck beds, etc. He can spend considerable chunks of time moving items from one container to another! Erik is just starting to be able to identify body parts - he is learning to point to his nose, eyes, ears, mouth or head (Sept 4). He has completely mastered "UP" and he will say "All Done" at the end of his meal-times or bath-time; more and more of his words are becoming clear (Sept 7).
We ended the month of August with the long Labor Day weekend by picking Uncle Kalvin up from the airport on Thursday, Aug 30. He was on his way back to California from a few weeks in Haiti where he helped clean up an orphanage. We picked up Erik early from daycare on the way back from the airport and were informed that several kids had displayed flu-like symptoms. And sure enough, Erik threw up that evening - all down Kent's back. Oops!! Erik threw up again during the night and then had diarrhea all day on Friday. Kent got sick on Friday morning and then I got sick Friday night. We were all out of commission for the holiday. This version of the flu totally drained all our energy in addition to making sure that we stayed very close to the restroom. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time with Kalvin, but thankfully, Kalvin has a friend in town so he was able to spend most of the weekend with Mark.
In Kent's Words:
Over the past several weeks it has been fun to watch Erik change almost on a daily basis. It seems every day he does something slightly better or new. Some of the things that I took note of that were new or noteworthy in my mind over the past few weeks included:
1) increasing interest in his socks and shoes. He readily identifies shoes, even if they are not his. He crawled over to my house slippers and wanted to put his feet in them. He is also very interested when you put his socks and shoes on. He laughed tonight when I took off his socks and shoes. He typically pays very close attention until you finish putting them on in the morning. The other thing he does often is look down when you are holding him to watch your shoes as you walk. He likes playing with shoes as well.
2) Erik typically takes special pleasure in knocking over blocks or anything he perceives as something that has been built...it must be destroyed immediately. When it comes to blocks there cannot be one block still stacked on the other...he would have been a great old testament warrior whenever they were instructed not to leave one stone on top of the other! :) Although I'm still looking forward to him stacking a block or two at some point, there was a glimmer of hope the other day while playing with his block train. It has dowels that blocks fit over and he spent at least 5 minutes positioning and dropping the blocks with holes in them over the dowels! Up to that point he had only ever rapidly disassembled the train. He also has legos now and is a lego demolition specialist. He is still learning how to assemble those! The other day I had built a massive block tower and as he tried to get to it to level it I restrained him or blocked him a couple times and he started laughing each time so its as if he feels that knocking things over is kind of a game to him or something he thinks is funny.
3) He has taken a great deal of interest in going outside now as well. He likes to walk on the sidewalk and grass. There was a piece of mulch that had somehow gotten on the sidewalk. He picked it up and walked it over to the mulch bed and bent over gently to set the mulch down with the other mulch. I immediately determined that his anal meter might be pegging out! I guess he doesn't have much of a chance with two accountants as parents.
4) It's also been fun to have him start communicating more...He knows how to say "No" when he doesn't want something and can sort of indicate what he wants more than before. He says "all done" as awwww dun. I guess he's just becoming more animated or better at providing non-verbal cues about what he is thinking. He says dada and mama and uh-oh and up. He seems to know when to use these words correctly as well.
5) He likes to watch videos of himself on our phones...he will watch them until they finish which seems weird as a one-year old attention span is typically quite short!
6) He is also becoming more interested or capable of pressing buttons. At daycare there is a security button that buzzes the front desk to let us in the building. He has in the last week successfully pressed the button on several occasions. He remembers its coming too as he starts holding or pointing his finger out well before the door comes. He is also learning how to operate light switches and garage door openers.
7) The best way to describe his overall approach is definitely a highly developing sense of curiosity! He likes opening and closing cupboard doors and looking at what's inside.
8) He likes putting things into containers, which bodes well for cleanup in the future!
