I’m not sure how I’m ever going to feel comfortable having Colin out of our supervision. We experimented with leaving him in the care of the folks at the Y while we worked out. In our defense, it’s a safe and secure place where we really shouldn’t worry about him. All the same, we only left him for about 10 minutes as our workouts overlapped.
It was not easy. I goofed by not making it clear to Colin that I was leaving him with these strangers (good job daddy), and apparently while he was down there some other kid opened the gate into the play area right on our little baby boy. Augh.
Conceptually I understand that there is going to come a time in his life when Jess or I are not monitoring him and making sure he’s okay, but letting that happen is obviously going to be a lot harder than I ever imagined. Definitely not going to happen again until he’s walking and thus a bit more independent. Maybe when he’s about fifteen or so.
Random pic of the day:
The countdown to walking continues, with Colin currently working out in any way he can to build up those leg muscles. Most recently he has taken to holding on the table and repeatedly sitting down and pulling up, sitting down and pulling up. Reminds of one of those ancient exercise films, we just need to get him one of those jack lalane-type one piece outfits with a big ‘C’ on it.
The vocabulary is really starting to take shape as well, which has Jess and me much more attuned to what we’re saying, because he really grabs on to things you say. I’ve seen the less desirable consequences of that, so mommy and daddy are minding their p’s and q’s (as well as some other letters).
[Chuck:] We’re rapidly closing in on walking - Colin has been standing on his own for longer periods of time, and taken some hesitant steps. Most of the time he just falls forward (we catch him of course), but I think we’re close.
[Jess:] Although Colin can’t walk yet, he has learned he can climb - up gates. Yesterday I turned around and he is hanging from the gate (arms on - both feet up on the gate) and shaking it back and forth. Having a little monkey boy should be interesting 
We were in Arbor Farms yesterday, and Colin was riding around on my shoulders. As we were close to leaving we stopped to grab a cookie and this woman behind us remarked that she thought Colin was truly an adorable baby.
No argument from me, and he gets that kind of thing regularly (justifiably), but then she went on to say “it’s clear that he’s really going to be a leader.”
That was a new one for me, and I don’t think Jess had heard it before. I’m not sure how you judge the leadership potential of a 13 month baby, but the pressure’s on buddy.
I guess Chuck has taken over for the past few weeks, but here are a couple things I want to remember:
- How sweet Colin is when he wants to fall asleep - he rests his head on my shoulder and plays with my ear while sucking his thumb.
- How soft his skin is, true of all babies of course, but his little hands are just so soft and cute when he puts them on my arm or my face.
- They way he tries to pick my nose while I rock him - or he tries to stay awake by smiling and talking to me (I try not to fall for it)
- His joy at standing for a couple seconds before falling into me for a hug.
- The constant attention to the light switches when we go in and out of rooms
- Pointing to his hand whenever we ask him where any body parts are (not all the time but most of it)
- His cruising pattern - pull up on the coffee table, do a lap around, get to the couch, over to the side table, open the drawer, pull out all the maps, cruise around the corner, play with the phone line, cruise all the gate, to the bookshelf (pull a few books out), on to hte piano, cry because he doesn’t know how to sit down, around to the other couch and to the exercise bike, have mommy help you sit. Crawl back to coffee table. Repeat.
Those are just a few things I want to remember.
Colin had an action packed weekend. We took him over to Aunt Christine and Uncle Tim’s new house on Friday night, and he had a great time test driving all of his cousin Jack’s toys. The train table was particularly popular, although that might have been partially due to the fact that it was the perfect height for Colin to cruise around it - his favorite activity right now.
On Saturday we took a ride on a slightly bigger train, when we met up with the whole Chelsea crew to ride the “Southern Michigan Railroad” for their fall colors ride. Couple of hours and about five miles up and down a short piece of track a little south of Ann Arbor. It was fun, and Colin seemed to get a kick out of it, but he was quite zonked by the end of the ride. Didn’t dent his appetite when we went to dinner to celebrate Sheila’s birthday, he plowed through a couple of jars of food, a couple of rolls (it seemed like that many) and a handful of my fries. Apparently he will tolerate having his food cut up no longer - the bite size pieces of french fry I put in front of him held no interest. But as soon as I gave him a whole fry he took it apart. The kid knows what he wants.
It had to happen eventually, Colin took his first spill that caused some visible damage…and Mommy drew first blood.
It’s not all that bad, Colin was wrapping up a diaper change and started to dart away, Jess had a hold of his onesie and let go, and the little man vaulted forward on to his face. Apparently upper lip collided with his top teeth (all two of them) and the result was a fat lip. Ouch.
He weathered it well though, and on a brighter note his vocab is really expanding rapidly. Many things are still just “da” and “ah”, but we’re hearing a lot more “tru”, “sto”, “daw” and even “up”. “Up” only refers to stairs for now, which Colin loves to climb, but the rest actually apply to a specific object (you’ll have to figure out what on your own).
Sometimes I picture Colin getting together with a few of the other sub-3-yr olds we know, and comparing notes about how they’ve controlled and manipulated their parents recently. They’re all smoking candy cigarettes, drinking yoo-hoo and cackling maniacally.
I know kids are wonderful, I adore my son, but sometimes the timing of those outbursts and the like just seems so perfectly timed…
Augh, work - I had such a great run of consecutive posts, and now days without a missive about little C. Hopefully work-craziness is subsiding, and I’ll just get back to standard parenting craziness for a while.
The biggest changes this week are related to speed. Colin seems to be doing everything faster, especially moving. He crawls like the wind, and he’s gaining more and more confidence when cruising around tables.
Of course that has consequences - apparently he took a nosedive off the stairs today, because he got distracted by Sesame Street. To his credit, he didn’t make a peep though - then Jess took him for five different immunizations, and he bawled his head off. So it goes for the babes.
We have rechristened the Exersaucer the Poopasaucer - it has almost a 100% success rate in helping the little man take care of business. Jess chastised me about posting stuff like this, saying this should be for Colin to read when he gets older, but why wouldn’t he want to know about this?
