Cruising and pumpkins

Oliver has been quite the busy little on lately. We can hardly keep up with him! He is crawling a mile a minute and is cruising quite nicely. He has even started to go one handed (eek!).
Oliver's new favorite activities include banging on the ottoman while standing, banging toys together, splashing in his inflatable duck bathtub...do you sense a theme here? He also loves ripping pages out of magazines (specially selected ones, of course), reading books, being tickled and laughing. He is so much fun! I love how I can get him so tickled playing with him and making him laugh.

On another note, we are trying table foods with limited success. The food sometimes makes it to our mouth but even less of it actually stays in the mouth . Most of it winds up on the bib or under the shirt. Although we did find a cheerio in his diaper the other day...

Still lots of babbling but no words yet. Lots of vowels and some consonants. This week we favored the letter g.

Love, love, love to pull up. No serious injuries at this point but some required a little extra TLC.

Today we went to the pumpkin patch. Here are a couple of pictures:Oliver wasn't quite sure about the pumpkin patch. He is kind of a homebody right now. He never really fusses or complains but he is just so much happier at home. We keep trying to get him out for "exciting adventures" when we can to let him know that fun can happen outside of his familiar walls.

So much more to write. I think I have to get over the need to post pictures every time and just blog when I think about it (which is often). I know that all of these moments with Oliver are so precious and I want to remember as many as I can. My new goal is to have more frequent but shorter posts. We will see how it goes.

Laughing

So much has happened lately, and again I keep waiting for time to blog. Tonight I decided that would never come and I need to just go ahead and post.

First of all, here is one of my favorite things ever...Oliver laughing.

Excuse the lack of editing...again, time. Doug was holding Oliver and I was shaking a Wal-Mart bag. That's it. We just marveled at how tickled he got. I will treasure this clip forever. It brings a smile to my face no matter how upset or stressed I am. Hope you enjoy as well!

Here are a few more updates:

• Oliver had a great nine month appointment. He is now 29 inches and 21 pounds and 5 ounces, we think. He would sit still long enough on the scale to get a totally accurate reading. The nurse couldn't stop talking about how active he was. Oliver is doing fine and the pediatrician predicted he would be walking by Christmas. After watching him this past week, I have no doubt.
• Oliver is almost done cutting four teeth-in a week's time! He has 2 top lateral incisors (yes, I had to look that up), one central incisor has poked through and you can see the other through the gum. I can't believe his smile is going to change again. I will miss his little bottom teeth only grin. We are anxious to finish the teething process for this go around though-we have had some tough nights and are ready for everyone to get their sleep again.
• Speedy-that's how to describe Oliver now. He is so fast! I can almost not keep up with him. I can't believe how quickly he went from a few "steps" with his crawl to racing around the house.
• He is pulling up now. He is very good at it except he doesn't understand the whole physics of the best way to stand and will stand too far away from whatever he is holding. Today he got his first bump on the head when he slipped and hit his head on the bookshelf. Poor baby!
• Pulling up has also affected our sleeping. Now when he wakes, he will pull up and then, we suspect, not be able to get down and then the meltdown starts. We are really, really hoping this phase does not last long.

I am glad to be getting back into some kind of normal routine. Last week was parent teacher conferences and I hardly saw Oliver at all. I missed him so much-it was really affecting me by later in the week. I really missed coming home and playing with him. He is just the best. He is so much fun and now that he is more mobile, he will crawl to you and I just scoop him up and love on him-then he wants down and is ready to go. He is just the best.

As Oliver would say...oomba.