Free Will

Now that Henry can crawl, it is a whole new ball game. I can't depend on him to remain where I left him and he is starting to get into all sorts of mischief. At the same time, he also perfected moving from his belly to a seated position. Additionally, as my mother predicted, once the crawling comes, the pulling up and standing comes in full force. So, he has a trifecta of new moves to work on and there have been a flood of consequences.

The first and most "challenging" is that he refuses to sleep. I lay him down, and he immediately flops onto his belly, pushes up on the knees and sits. Over and over. The most fun time is when he does this in the middle of the night. I hear him crying and find him sitting up, totally awake. He is still to groggy to lay down, so he needs my assistance. Fun city.

He also likes to play jail bird in the crib. I try to ignore him when he sits up before naps but he whines and cries and refuses to sleep. He just sings his tale of woe, staring between the bars. When he really wants me in there, I hear the pacifier hit the floor. As soon as he sees me, he starts giggling. It is so sweet, he even pushes he little mouth and hands through for me to kiss. Yes, you can see I am quite the disciplinarian!

Henry has also perfected his alligator roll on the changing table, which makes diapering almost impossible. He flips and flops and then sits up and tries to crush his fingers in the wipes container. We will definitely start using the floor soon.

He has always like taking baths, but now really loves them. He moves all around his little tub, trying to grab the water coming from the spout and trying to stand up. He is a moving target to wash, I am sure I miss some spots.

Lastly, his favorite place to pull up is the ottoman where I keep the computer. He just loves to help me type. I venture a guess that we will be needing a new laptop soon, as he is not very gentle.

All kidding aside, it is a very fun time. I love to watch his little mind work, and see what he likes to play with and what he ignores. He moves around his room and touches things that he has never played with before with a look of such fascination on his face. He all time favorite toy is his rubber kick ball. Now that he can move around we can even pass the ball back and forth. It is pretty amazing, he can actually throw the ball to me with some force and accuracy. I push it back to him and he can grab it while it is in motion.