21 July 2010

First Steps...

That's right...Rory took his first steps today. He walked from me to Mama Bev several times, and cracked himself up the whole time. He is visibly as proud of himself as we are of him. Of course, being the document-everything-freaks that we are, we immediately grabbed the video camera, and started shooting just at the point where he was so silly and giggly about it all that he couldn't actually take any steps. Instead he just kept standing, then laughing, then falling into one of us, and laughing some more...and then he fell on a toy and gave himself his second black eye ever. Yup, we pushed it a bit too far and ended up letting him fall. :( So sad. He's a trooper though and was back in the saddle later that afternoon.



Here's one video we collected from his triumphant day:

17 July 2010

Oh the things I can do...

So, Rory has a whole bunch of new tricks to show off. It seems like this week he's doing some very amazing and funny things.

1. He's standing on his own. For the past few weeks, he's gotten pretty good at walking along the couch or coffee table holding on, but today for the first time, he intentionally started letting go of what he was holding on to in order to test his balance. He's doing really well at it too. He can stand for a good 5-10 seconds without falling, and you can really see he's adjusting the weight on his feet to compensate. Its amazing to watch. Of course, falling down has thusfar been hysterical to him because we've been there to either catch him or break his fall a bit. I'm not sure he's going to find it so funny when he hits his head (not that he isn't used to doing that already).

2. He is exploring how to use his new front teeth with his two bottom teeth. This week he's decided that taking a bite of a cheerio is the best way to eat them. Its super cute because a cheerio is so small to begin with, and he very carefully lines it up in the front of his mouth and takes a bite of it, so that only half goes into his mouth, and then he pulls the other half out and inspects his work before throwing it into his mouth to finish the job. And he does this with every one for a while. It takes forever, but its so darn cute to watch him.

3. He has started scolding himself when he's doing something wrong or just about to. It so funny. We actually don't say "no" to him all that often. We're pretty good at redirecting instead of just telling him "no", so he's more used to hearing us say "Hey, let's try playing with something else instead." We reserve the hard "No" for really important, dangerous things like the bricks around the woodstove and the litter box, etc. He has been very good at using his nods to tell us yes or no to things lately. He'll shake his head yes when he wants more dinner and he'll shake it no when he's doesn't want what you're trying to give him. Now, he crawls over to the bricks and as he's moving towards them, he's shaking his head "no, no, no", with huge smiles of course. There are 2 parts of this I find fascinating...one is that he usually listens to himself when he tells himself "no". Most of the time he stops just before he gets to the forbidden area and shakes his head "no" and looks at us to confirm, and then crawls off the other way (most of the time...not all of the time). The second fascinating thing is that he actually seems to know what things he's not supposed to do before we even have told him "no". The other day, I caught him in his crib after a nap, reaching out of the slats to touch the curtains, which he can just reach. As he did it, he shook his head "no" and pulled his hand back. He hadn't ever done that, so we've never told him "no" before and he had no idea I was watching. Too funny. He did the same with the stairs the first time he found them. I love that he has a conscience already and a knowledge (sort of) of right vs wrong, and a memory of what we've told him is wrong already. Our job is done here. :)

A few random photos leftover from our trip to NYC to keep the post interesting...

Rory is learning flip cup at a young age.

Cups are SO much fun.

Rory and his city cousin hanging out.

Look at the sense of wonder in his eyes...I have no idea what he's actually looking at, but it must be interesting.

Silly man making funny faces.

13 July 2010

4th of July

We had a very busy 4th of July weekend. First we went to Auntie Nicole's graduation party and swam in the big pool at Ninna and Papa's house. Then we drove back to Maine and had a great Sunday spending time at the lake with our neighbor friends and then we went to a bbq for Em's birthday. Monday we had a nice relaxing day and did some much needed chilling. Rory had his first taste of frozen yogurt at our trip to Beal's with Imani, Kate and Bayla. Needless to say, he loved it.
He had a ball playing in the cooler with Uncle Buck.

He's defiinitely plotting something here...wonder where he gets that from. He was standing near Denise. :)

Showing off his funny face in the pool.

Tough guy on his Seadoo at the lake!!!

...if I can just find the ON button, then I can get out of here.

Walking in the water like a big guy...

He's so happy in the water.

06 July 2010

Rory's on the ball







Right outside Gramma's home, Rory found these parking barriers/public art/big concrete spheres. He forced us to take a few photos of him. He is so demanding sometimes!