Big little steps

Ever since James squeezed past the gate and fell down the stairs a few weeks ago, we have been working on stair safety. Since he could walk he has enjoyed walking up and down the stairs with Daddy holding onto his hands, and we still do that almost every day. Sometimes it seems like that's all we do - the Dacula park has stairs leading down to the playground, and we spend more time on the stairs than on the playground. Daddy thinks that James should learn how to manage stairs on his own, however, in case he somehow manages to get past the gate again. This is unlikely, considering the reinforcements put on the gate, but better safe than sorry. So we have been practicing solo stair descending, and James is now pretty good at it. This technique only works when there are rails available, but that's good for now. He uses the standard hands-and-knees crawling method for going up the stairs, by the way.

Buff Baby

While I am somewhat laith to put a video of myself working out on the internet, I couldn't help it when I saw how cute James was. Here James is working on his abs. He saw me doing crunches the other day and decided that if Mommy does it, surely I should too. He then sat down and began his own version of abdominal exercise. Now we just have to plan what we'll say to the doctor, who already criticizes James for being too thin, when he sees James's rock hard abs.

Our Need for Deep Carpet Cleaning Increases Exponentially

So, as you can see from the above video, James has been practicing with his spoon. He does pretty well with dipping the spoon in something he wants to eat and then bringing the spoon to his mouth. He does not always bring the correct end of the spoon to his mouth, but hey, we all have to start somewhere, right? Needless to say, this particular learning experience is taking its toll on our carpet. Alas.

James Enjoys Fall

I am not nearly as reliable as would be ideal in contributing pictures to the blog. Sorry about that. Here are some.

This is me and James handing out candy to some of the 348 trick-or-treaters that came to our house last night. James thought it was tremendous fun. He would pick up candy out of the bowl and drop it. Sometimes it landed in the baskets the kids brought, sometimes it landed on the floor, but more often I was able to catch it and distribute it properly. We made a great team, overall.
This is James in his fancy lion costume. He did not think the hat portion was tremendous fun. Therefore, it was short lived.
This is me and James playing with the parachute during story time. James also thought this was tremendous fun. I agreed.
This is James playing with this gear game thing at the park near our house. He loves this park in general. He climbs up the slide and then goes back down it for hours at a time.
This is James video chatting with Auntie Erin and Auntie Kristin. He absolutely loves this particular activity, though I think he likes the opportunity to hit the keys on the computer more than the actual conversation (sorry, sisters).

Now that I've figured out how to hook my fancy pants new camera up to my computer, I'll be able to be more forthcoming with the pictures. In theory. We do live in a constant state of chaos, after all.