Pull-Up

When I left the room, Luke was crawling on the floor to the chair. When I came back, he had pulled himself up to this position on the chair. Way to go big boy! He's going to be cruising before we know it!

Luke's Special Crawl

Luke is transitioning from crawling to walking.  Before I forget the cute things he did while crawling I figure I should probably write them down and even get a video.  When Luke first started crawling he wasn't very good.  He knew that he needed to move his arms and legs but he didn't understand that it was his hands and feet that needed to be on the floor and not his belly.  So when he would attempt to crawl he would be in a belly down skydiving position waving his arms and legs and not going anywhere.


As his crawling skills improve he does his special crawl less and less as he focuses on what he wants and how to get there.  Instead, he now does it only when he gets really excited.  If he is on his belly when I come home from work I am greeted with a big grin and Luke hits overdrive without going anywhere.

Most of me is looking forward to Luke walking.  Being able to put him down when at the store without his hands getting all dirty is going to be awesome.  However, I'll miss how slow he moved when first started crawling and being able to take our eyes off him as he stayed where we left him.  Another thing I'm not looking forward to is the return of baby gates.  We have them at the bottom and top of our stairs and for the last 9 months we haven't needed them as Alyce has mastered stairs and no longer plays on them.  Having to open and close them for the next 18 months is a drag.

Officially a Crawler

Well it is official Luke is a crawler.  We're not really sure when he crossed the threshold into crawling but it has been rather recently.  His crawl isn't what you would think of.  His version consists of using both arms, one leg, and it looks like an army crawl with one leg dragging.  Even though it might not look like your standard crawl he is able to move forward and thus it is official.  He is moving pretty slow going while crawling so it isn't too terrible yet.  Once he really gets moving he will require a lot more attention.

Getting him to this point seems to have taken a lot longer than I anticipated.  Late in November I thought he was on the cusp of crawling and here we are in January and he is just now doing it.  To his defense he wasn't really that interested in crawling.  He was and is still interested in standing.  I have a feeling that he is going to make a quick switch to walking now that he can get himself to a couch in way that he can move to a standing position.

Moving to a Seated Position

This morning Luke moved to the seated position all by himself!  I was lucky enough to be there when it happened.  Luke woke up kind of early so while Mom was getting ready to for the day we had Luke on the bed with us.  There was a big bundle of sheets underneath him so he wasn't 100% on his back.  Right in front of both Mom and myself he sort of rolled onto one hip / did a sit up and to get 70% up.  He held that position by holding onto Mom's leg and with a second effort he picked up his arm and lunged up the last 30% to reach a seated position.  Mom and I were proud and we clapped and cheered for him.  Luke was also proud of himself because he was sporting an ear to ear grin.  Shortly thereafter he was on his back again and went through the maneuver one more time for practice.  If he were completely horizontal to the ground I don't know if he could repeat his accomplishment but in my opinion I think we can check off another milestone.

9 Month Update

I brought Luke in for his 9 month checkup today and we have good news. Luke is back on the charts! Both his height and weight are now under 100%. Dad and I were pretty sure that his weight gain was slowing and that his height was growing into his weight and now we have proof

• Height 30 inches which is in the 95 - 100 percentile 
  
• Weight 25 lbs. 4 oz. which is in the 95 - 100 percentile
  
• Head 46 cm.which is the 75th percentile

His development seemed to be right on track.  The doctor asked a lot of questions about his speech or at least the precursors to speech and she seemed pleased with his progress.  For the record Luke is a big talker.  His vocabulary consists of Ba, Da, Ma, Ha, and Heh.  He says them all at different volumes, pitches, and frequency.

Welcome Abby

Mom, Alyce, Luke, and myself would like to welcome to the world our neighbor's Jeff and Liz's new baby Abigail.  Liz announced she was pregnant just about the same time we brought Luke home from the hospital.  Here we are 9 months later and they have their own bundle of joy.

Abigail was born 6 lbs. 7 oz. with a length of 18 in.

Seeing how much they enjoyed taking care of Alyce and Luke we know that they will be great parents to their child

Alyce and Luke haven't seen her yet.  We didn't want to bring our germ infested children into a clean environment and we wanted to have uninterrupted time holding such a cute little girl.

Want

Luke must be thinking he is ready for adult food. During lunch today at Sam's he kept reaching for Mom's pizza.

Sooo Big!

Last weekend Luke started to play our family's favorite game, Sooo Big!  We started Sooo Big with Alyce when she was a baby and it is pretty simple.  We would ask Alyce how big she was,  she would respond by putting her arms over her head, we would say "sooo big!", and put our arms over our head to mimic.

For the longest time we have been trying to get Luke to play.  Grandma and Grams have even helped with the cause but Luke would just look at us like we had lobsters crawling out our ears.  Last Sunday while at Grams and Papa's for dinner Luke finally figured it out.  He had the cover to Mom's phone and would grab it with both hands and put it over his head.  We responded with "sooo big" and he squealed with delight.  After a couple of repetitions asking Luke how big he was he joined in on the fun.  We continued to play for the next twenty minutes and he kept getting more and more excited.  One moment he stopped his usual Luke baby laugh and said very toddler like "Ha!".

Now that Luke knows that putting his arms above his head will evoke a response he is doing it all over the place.  We go along with it because we love to watch his reactions.  Luke has a two different types of Sooo Bigs.  There is the standard arms above the head move and he has an EXTREME Soo Big.  Extreme Sooo Big is when he puts his arms up at a 45 degree angle, fists balled, looks serious, and his whole body quivers.  I think he is even holding his breath with this version.  Whenever I see this version I imagine that Luke is thinking to himself "Look at me.  I'm so awesome.  I can put my arms over my head.  I demand to be noticed!".