Simon: Tiny steps, new words!

Simon has officially taken his first step! Okay, well it was really just a tiny "shuffle," but I think it counts! On Noah's birthday, he started standing up from the floor by himself, and while standing there, shuffled his foot to keep his balance! :) He has since stood for about 20 seconds, and shuffled once more. I actually got it on video, so I'll have to come update this post soon! Noah is proud of his brother, and was laughing and encouraging as he was doing it. I thought he might be walking within a couple of weeks, but he doesn't really show much interest in practicing, knowing he's much quicker on his hands and knee/foot (crabcrawl). We'll see when he actually starts walking! My prediction is still for 15 months (he'll be 15 months in a few days).

He also has a few new words! After "uh-oh," which showed up at 12 months, he started saying, "no, no, no," when doing something he is not supposed to. His favorite forbidden activity is to pick up Monty's dry cat food, put it in his mouth, and say, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no." I hear a little ding sound of the food/hand in the bowl, and then the nos, and know exactly what he's doing! He has also started saying the word, "ball," which of course sounds like "bah." He picked it up from one of his books, where I repeated the word to him, and he repeated after me, and has applied it to other circumstances, like this morning, when I had him in the car and there was a ball next to him that he wanted.

Simon has been very receptive to language. I don't know if it is because I am more aware of how babies learn, or if he is just focusing more on that than other skills right now. We also spend a lot of time reading while he uses the toilet (that's what keeps him on there; otherwise, he would want to jump right down). He tries to say bird, which sounds like "bwah," every time we look at the page with a bird on it.

Overall, he's much more engaged with the world now. He has lots of belly laughs, makes little jokes, and loves playing. He also has some serious separation anxiety, but seems to deal with it okay. He is now starting to push Noah away when I have him on my lap, so now they both need to learn to share mommy!!