WWK's Mobility Revolution

We've had our first casualty of Wyatt's mobility revolution: his head. Yeah, the little dude took a spill while climbing Mt. Coffee Table. We estimate, from his all-boy energy, that this is the first of many. Great. I guess it comes with the territory, but no Mama likes to see her kid with a fat bruise on his forehead.

As you know, Wyatt's a crawler now. He gets more confident and a little quicker every day. Well, it turns out that mere crawling was boring my child to tears. So, he decided the night before last to pull up to a standing position on the coffee table all by himself. Yes, my child is now standing without help. This is where I remind you that this kid is only 7 months old. In a month's time, he has gone from playing on his back and tummy to sitting up on his own to crawling to standing. The next step will be cruising, which doesn't seem too far off. And then, of course, comes walking. Exactly how early is this munchkin going to walk? Holy frickin' cow!

I have one last little milestone to share. This one helps me out a lot. Wyatt is now consistently holding his own bottle. Yesterday he did it for every bottle, so he's proven his capability. When Wyatt proves he's capable of new things, we don't allow him to opt out. If he wants a bottle, he now has to hold it. End of discussion. We did the same thing with sleeping through the night. Once he'd done it 3 nights in a row, we knew he was capable. After that, he never got another middle of the night feeding. (Well, except for that one time when he was sick, but those were extenuating circumstances.) Everyone has their own parenting style, but for us, enforcing things like this have been very successful. That, or we just have a really good kid, in which case I'm sure I'll be eating crow when we get around to baby #2, haha.

Well, I guess that about sums things up. Clearly my son is in a hurry to grow up. I have a theory on that. Ryan always tells him that when he gets bigger, he can go to work with Daddy. Wyatt obviously likes this idea a lot. Watch out for our blue-eyed boy in a hard hat and work boots any day now...

Fast and Furious

Dude. Seriously. This kid is in milestone overdrive. Last night, Wyatt crawled for the first time! He's been taking a few "steps" before losing his focus, but he's done it several times, so we know he has the mechanics down. He ought to be a speeding bullet of a rug rat in no time. As I mentioned in my last post, he's also learning to climb. We finally lowered his crib in order to prevent him from taking a dive over the top. Last night he also attempted to pull himself up to a standing position on the couch. He couldn't quite get there, but he looked determined, which seems to garner quick results in Wyatt land. I'm also trying to teach him how to crawl down backwards from the couch. I got a picture of him on my cell phone standing steady after a crawl-down lesson, and I expect we'll see more of this pose as he figures out how to pull all the way to standing. And since every time he's in a standing position, he tries to take steps, I foresee an early walker... I keep having to remind myself that my milestone-ramming, super tall little boy is really only 7 months old. Sometimes he looks so much older than that. Oh, but those chubby cheeks give him away... :)

I'm also happy to report that yesterday I slipped into the jeans I wore for my engagement pictures two years ago. I wore them comfortably for most of the day until Wyatt managed to get carrots on them. Fun with laundry! But it felt great. I'm not quite to my goal weight yet, but getting into some of my skinnier clothes is definitely incentive to keep fighting the good fight. It'll probably take a "mom job" after we're done having kids to get me back into my favorite bikini, but I sure do have a lot of great jeans I'll be thrilled to wear all winter. :)

More about me, me, me: I've been wrestling with an old manuscript lately. (Yes, reading Twilight inspired me.) I love my characters and the premise, but something was eating at me as I tried to move the story forward. Well, I figured it out! Now I can move forward, and potentially finish this thing! I realize this is kind of cryptic, since I'm not going to reveal my secret ingredient... or even the kind of recipe for that matter, ha ha, but I just had to share. I made a breakthrough. And for a writer, that kicks ass. :)

Here's the happy mama with her munchkin. I so rarely have pictures of myself posted anywhere, so I figured I'd drop in and say hello:

Lucky Number 7

On Saturday, the munchkin will be 7 months old. It's strange to even try to think about whether that happened quickly or slowly. Like with all things time-related, I have a mixed response with dramatic swings of the pendulum. But whether that took forever, or happened in a blink, we have a 7 month old child. And I say child, not baby. This kid quit being a baby a while back. He's such a little boy. It's crazy to listen to him growl, see him create his own game of peek-a-boo, and watch the milestones wander past us. He's cut his second tooth as of this morning (a grumpy morning indeed), and is learning how to climb. Evidently, a child doesn't need to know how to crawl forward in order to crawl up. He is easily bored, fights naps like a champ, and will always grin wildly at his first glimpse of his dad each day. He's a beautiful little boy, and he now actually knows what "no" means, and responds (usually) accordingly. Pretty stinkin' miraculous stuff.

I will now enter the portion of my blog I'll call "luck-schmuck". I'm going to give you the very abbreviated story of what I referred to at the end of my last blog. A week ago today, Ryan was called in to help his landlord evict a tenant. It was a church, which sounds innocent enough, but when all was said and done, the "pastor" had called in some thugs to break Ryan's face, and he had to pull his pistol (a gun he carries legally, by the way) to get them to stand down. (I put "pastor" in quotation marks fairly, considering by the end he was yelling "don't call me pastor. I'm not a pastor". I think that's what we refer to as a "wolf in sheep's clothing.") Well, they claimed they were gonna go get more guys and guns... As they sped of, Ryan called 911. After 5 attempts, he got through. (Makes you feel really safe, doesn't it? 5 attempts to get through to 911? Our safe society is such a thin veneer...) After a tense and scary 15 minutes, the police came to "diffuse" the situation. That means they made everyone go away, not that anyone was actually safe. But still, a gun fight was obverted, so that's a relief. Especially over a frickin' eviction of a church. Well, the next morning, the landlord got a call from the "pastor", saying the boys didn't like getting a gun pulled on them, so they were out looking for Ryan with a few "shooters" fresh out of the Pen. Great. Perfect. So there was like a hit out on my husband for evicting a church that never paid a cent of rent... and he's not even the landlord. Needless to say, we decided to leave town for a while and let things cool down. Things seem to be okay now, but no mother of a small child (okay no one, period) enjoys scary threats. So we're still on high alert for a while... Awesome. Heartwarming, ain't it? So that's the short version. I don't know if I have the energy to get into the longer version, but let me just tell you one thing: Ryan acted in wisdom and more importantly - he acted rightly. And I'll always be glad I'm married to the good guy, even if dealing with a bad guy may put him in danger. Contrary to what some may think, there's still such a thing as right and wrong, and my husband is on the good side.

On a lighter note, where are my book recommendations, people? Come on, throw this literary fiend a bone! I'm almost done with my rebound book and I'm jonesing for input. Thanks!