recent developments

This has been a week of developments. I feel like K has reached a lot of milestones lately.

He's started to walk. He still mostly crawls, but he will frequently let go of the couch or wall and walk for a few feet without help or support. It's kind of hard to believe it's happened. When he was born it seemed like walking was such a long time away.

Today he figured out how to climb onto the chairs that go with our table. He went straight for the salt and pepper shakers and RT's laptop. He was rather upset with me when I turned all the chairs on their sides, an idea I borrowed from RT's sister Eliza. I'm not too thrilled with the prospect of having chairs on their sides most of the time, but it's better than the alternative.

K knows what "no" means, and now that we've found that out, we are using it to our advantage to try to get rid of some of his bad behaviors (pulling hair, hitting, and playing with the computer keyboard and mouse, to name a few). We are finding that if we tell him no, he will protest quite loudly but does stop. It's interesting to be the one doing the disciplining. It didn't generally occur to me that it was just as unpleasant for my parents as it was for me. I'm sure I have much more to learn.

Kevin has also started feeding himself with a spoon or fork. I used to think I would be excited when he could finally do that, except what I didn't realize is that it doesn't make life easier. It just means that I have an even bigger mess to clean up. But I'm still enjoying seeing him learn a new skill.

We think he tried to sign "eat" once. I was in the kitchen and Ryan and I both looked down at Kevin and realized that he was very purposefully tapping his palm against his mouth. So we rewarded him for communicating with us by feeding him, of course! It's nice to know that the things I've been trying to teach him are actually sticking.

Remember this changing pad, and these changing pads? Today I had the one with the dogs in the diaper bag. During Relief Society K grabbed the bag and was pulling everything out one at a time and throwing it over his shoulder. When the changing pad went flying, it made me think about my thoughts when I made the changing pads before he was born, especially the ones with the dinosaurs and the dogs.

I had conjured a beautiful scene: a sweet little boy sitting happily and contentedly in my lap, pointing at the pictures on the changing pads and saying, "Look, Mommy, a doggy!"
 "That's right, Kevin. What color is it?"
 "Blue!"
"And what color is this one?"
"Brown."
And then I would grin proudly, feeling like the best mom in the world because my son was so intelligent and cute. I had to laugh at myself as I remembered that, because that scene is not going to happen, at least not quite like I imagined it. I'm sure K will learn his colors and such and we will identify colors together, but the part about sitting quietly in Mommy's lap? Hahahahahahaha . . . . I just think it's funny that I had no idea what kind of child was coming into my life.

It's always interesting to see people get to know Kevin. When K was only a few months old, a sister in our ward asked to hold him, and after a few minutes of him constantly wriggling she turned to me with an amazed look on her face and said, "Is he always like this?" Yes, always. I also had a friend who babysat him for a couple of hours, and she told me that she was amazed at how active he was and that she could see why we got a gate. I need a gate. It's a relief to me to hear these comments because it makes me feel like it's okay that sometimes his energy level and his persistence make me really stressed and frustrated. It's because he's a particularly active baby, not because I need to get a grip or I'm doing things wrong or something. And even though sometimes he drives me crazy, I wouldn't change him for anything. Once there was a comment in Relief Society that made me think that those very traits are probably the same ones that in the future will be the talents that he will need to serve God.