The single greatest word ever, and other milestones

As I mentioned previously,  Elliott is developing quite a vocabulary.  His first words were "Daddy" and "dog", which he now consistently uses at the appropriate time.  Like when waking up and pointing to show he wants to go see Steve in the other room, or when there is a dog walking by down the street.  By far his favorite word is "uh-oh", which he says in a sing song manner (often right before he drops something).  Other words he picked up are "wow", and "stuck", which he says right after he rams his walker into the kitchen cabinets, and then continues to repeat until we turn him around so he can take off in the other direction.  He also says "woof" in response to the question "Hey Elliott, what does a dog say?"  "Hi" may be the word he says most frequently, and is always charming strangers with it.

I've been waiting (somewhat patiently) for the glorious "M" word, and it's taken a long time in coming. So you can imagine how happy it made me on Wednesday morning, when we were snuggling in the rocking chair, he turned to look at me, and said, "Mom".  Oh, it melted my heart!  And he said it with such a sweet smile, like he knew how happy it would make me.  Since Wednesday he has started saying "nom, nom, nom"from time to time, which I am claiming for myself.

Wednesday was quite a big day for Elliott.  He is so quick with the walker now, has developed good balance, and is comfortable cruising around the furniture at home.  But he has been taking his time before tackling the scary part of letting go of support.  On Wednesday he started crawling over to Anita, our daycare provider, pulling up on her, and then letting go.  Ok, you are probably thinking to yourself, big deal, so he can stand up, I do that every day.  But for a little guy who has spent his entire life on the floor, or leaning on something else for support, just letting go and depending on his own balance to hold him up is uncharted territory, like Neil Armstrong taking his first step out on to the moon.

Elliott has always enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror, but Wednesday was the first day that he made the connection that the adorable little kid he was seeing was actually himself.  Every time I put him in the carseat he would admire himself and say "Hi" in the backseat mirror, and then he started touching his nose, his eyes, and his mouth, and you could just see the little sparks going off in his brain as he realized he could see his nose, and feel it at the same time.

As Wednesday came to an end Steve put Elliott to bed while I went out to meet some friends.  I interrupted their jam session on the guitar (Elliott loves to play the guitar with Steve, and can actually strum the strings on his own), and asked Elliott to give me a kiss.  Normally he doesn't respond, but I lean over and smother him with kisses anyway, but that night he leaned over, puckered up, and planted a very wet open one on the corner of my mouth.  And then it was a kissing free for all, Daddy got kisses, and I got several more before I finally dragged myself out the door.

And while we're on the topic of guitars. I had to throw this one in.  Don't you love the rockstar pose?

Since I haven't been posting too frequently lately, I thought I would throw in a few bonus pics for you. Elliott has become fascinated with tools and plumbing.  Steve fixed an air leak in our pipes a few weeks ago, and Elliott had to explore the whole thing.

Elliott may not be walking on his own yet, but he is quite a climber.  A few weeks ago we took Reese to his favorite beach by our old house on the Mesa for some early morning play time.  For those of you who have never been, there are approximately 15 flights of wooden steps you have to walk down to actually get to the beach.  Not a big deal on the downward side, but walking back up the steps with a 21 lb baby had me huffing.  I set him down to take a break, and he ended up climbing up the last 3 flights on his own!

Why didn't anyone tell me being a parent would be so much fun?