Big & Tall

William discovered tonight that he is big enough to reach the horizontal oven door handle. He reached way up with one hand, grabbed on with his fingertips, then pulled slightly while pushing up on his tip-toes and grabbed on with his other hand. Of course once he had a firm grip, he got really excited and started rocking forward and back, taking the oven door along with him. Bang-squeak, bang-squeak, bang!

Carrot stick

As Mirjam was cleaning the kitchen tonight, she gave William a big round carrot to chew on while he crawled around. So he stuck it in his mouth and started to crawl around, the carrot sticking straight out in front of him, showing him which direction to go in. If he turned and looked to the side, the carrot reeled around with him. Ocassionaly he plopped down on his diaper-padded rump and pulled the carrot out with a hand or two and chewed or nibbled or gnawed on the end of it.

If this were a real emergency...

William plays with the phone a lot. He crawls over to the side of the bed in our room where the phone used to be on the corner shelf. It's on the floor now, because that's where it inevitably ends up every day. He loves to pull on the cords--oh, how he loves cords, of all kinds. He likes to chew on them and tug at them, and wave his arms frantically while holding onto them and squealing with joy.

He also likes to press the buttons. That was one of his first controlled actions with his hands. He holds onto the side of the phone and presses downward with one of his fingers or thumb. Sometimes he leaves the phone off the hook and crawls away. He hasn't learned to put it back yet, so I have to do it for him. Our cordless phone battery has suffered grieviously since William started excercising his button-pushing fingers. *Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep* I once found it lying on the floor with the readout showing it had been off the hook well over 90 minutes. That little green LCD screen seemed to be crying out, "Put me back on the charging station, please!"

Today, William learned how to dial the telephone. I was lying on the bed watching him play with the phone on the floor, and he seemed to be finished, so I hung up the reciever. A few seconds later, the phone rang again, so I picked it up:

"Hello?"

"This is the Provo Police Department. We just received a 911 call from this phone number, is everything okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, that must have been my son," I said with a smile toward William. He didn't care at all; didn't even look up. He just kept playing. Typical.

The nice woman on the other end then verified our address, thanked me, and hung up.

"Thanks," I said, thinking she probably gets a lot of those calls in our town.

There's no stopping them

A few nights ago, William was having a hard time sleeping. I was still up, and I didn't want to wake Mirjam. I was wondering why he wasn't sleeping as well as usual, then it hit me. He had been drooling a lot lately, too. It could only mean one thing: another tooth.

I pulled him out of his crib, and between sobs of grief (his, not mine), I pushed his lip out of the way to see a small slit in his lower gum next to the two teeth that were already there. I triumphantly marched with William to the bathroom, proud of my sleuthing abilities, and gave him a dab of Anbesol, which he quickly sucked off my finger. It takes some doing to actually plant the stuff on the proper gum without his tongue moving in to take over.

Sticking out his tongue

William stuck his tongue out today for the first time. It just happened, out of the blue. I can't tell you how absolutely hilarious it was. He just sat there, sticking his tongue out and pulling it back in. Later he combined his tongue trick with his "dadadada" noises, chewing on the end of it with with his mouth closed while talking to us. Of course we had to mimick him. "Mlamlamlam." We don't mind encouraging potentially bad habits right now. They're just too darn cute.

Just standing around

Last week William started standing for a few seconds without holding on to anything. It happens sometimes while he's holding a boardbook from the library or his sippy bottle or his little stuffed elephant. He ocassionally leans with his back or stomach gently up against the chair or the couch or my legs to keep his balance. But every now and then he pulls himself up to a standing position and grabs on to something with one hand, leaving the other in place to help him stay up. Then without a second thought, or any concious decision, he just lets go, holding with both hands his treaure for that moment, and simply stands there looking at it, completely unaware of what he's actually doing, and totally oblivious to his parents who are quietly bursting with joy over the simple act of their little boy standing on his own two feet.