Amazing Baby

For all his not sleeping, Owen continues to be adorable.
John gets up with him in the morning at whatever hour between 6 and 7ish he cannot be put back to sleep. They hang out down in the kitchen, one or both of them has breakfast, then John pops O in the crib with some toys while he goes to shower. The babe will play contentedly for a few minutes, but before the water's turned off he's usually calling for someone to go get him. This morning, when I went in, he was standing at the crib rail whining, but I came in the room, and he BEAMED at me and started bouncing. I asked if he wanted to get up and he extended one chubby hand to me happily. Up he came, and planted a big soggy kiss on my chin.
This is what it's about.

Other things he does that are incredible and got missed in the last post.

He's still a big reader and pulls all his books off the shelf several times a day. If you read to him, he likes to be the one to turn the pages - usually in the right direction, but sometimes he likes to go back to favourite pictures - and has developed a real fondness for touchy-feely and lift-the-flap books. He tends to over-love the flaps if left to his own devices, though.

Other fave objects? Shoes, slippers, paper, cardboard, remote controls, bowls, gross things, the cat bowl.

He was determined to crawl off the edge of things like the step to our front foyer and the bed, so we've been working on climbing off backwards, and he's really starting to get the hang of it! We're also working on rooms he's not allowed to go into (well, just one, the laundry room off the kitchen.) So he'll crawl right up to the doorframe and mama will go Ah-ah-ah, and he'll stop and sit back down on his bum and think for a while. He might try two or six times, but eventually he'll come back into the kitchen to do something else.

He's so interested in walking, he pushes around the kitchen chairs and these faux-leather, foam-stuffed ottomans we have. He can make fairly good distance.

He's a maniac from drinking from cups - sometimes his sippys, but he really prefers to drink from a grownup's. We let him make a mess when it's water, but it does make drinking juice, coffee, pop, beer or whatever a bit more complicated.

Right now he is playing mostly under a kitchen chair, repeatedly banging his head in the process. It doesn't seem to bother him, but perhaps I should rescue for the sake of the headache that will ensue!