Walking, Talking, and Signing

So it's been quite a while since the last time I updated, but that seems to be the trend with my busy schedule. I will do my best to quickly get everything up to speed.

Brian took his first independent step on August 2. He was just over 10 months old. Within 2 short weeks he was independently taking 5 to 10 steps here and there, but still preferred crawling to walking. By the end of August Brian was walking all over the place and preferred to walk much more than crawl.

With the walking came LOTS of climbing. Brian will climb anything and everything. At about the same time, he also figured out how to open all the cabinets in the kitchen. He also loves to open and close doors around the apartment. He is too short still to reach the door-knob which is good and bad. It's good in that he cannot "escape", but it's bad because he very often closes himself into rooms and then cried until someone comes and lets him out.

Also around the beginning of August, Brian started using sign language pretty regularly. His most prominent sign is 'please'. He will sign it when he wants something, most of the time food. There was a night when it was about 15 minutes past his normal dinner time and he was whining and I asked him what he wanted and he signed 'eat' then 'please'. I was so excited!!!! He know (and uses) 'please', 'eat', 'all done', 'milk', and 'more'. He can also claps to say 'yay' and waves for both 'hello/hi' and 'bye-bye'. We are working on adding to those. Right now it is a slow process - he wants to use the same sign for everything. It won't be long.

It is amazing to me how everything seems to happen all at once. Practically overnight, Brian started communicating on a regular basis. He can already speak probably 15 to 20 words. He will bring toys to me if he wants me to help him and he will wait for me to follow him so he can show me what he wants (if he wants something). He can say (and knows what it means): mama, dada, nana, papa, bye-bye, baby, bear, duck, dog, car, moo, whoa, uh-oh, night-night, book, and several others that I can't think of right now. He also now understands and follows simple commands. I can ask him for a kiss now and he will give me a kiss - I LOVE IT! I can tell him to go get something and he will look for it and if he finds it he will get it and bring it to me. It is so fun watching him learn and communicate.

Brian is also starting to imitate behaviors. He 'talks' on his toy phone all the time and loves to give me or Jason the phone and have us talk on it too. He also knows what a brush and comb are for and tries to brush his hair and my hair. He sees Jason and I put things in the kitchen trash can, so he tries to put things in the kitchen trash can. We really have to watch him on that one. I am sure we have lost at least one pacifier that way. He also recently figured out how to work all the light switches and always wants us to pick him up so he can the lights on and off. I never know what new thing he is going to learn today.

His development is just starting to take off and I love it. I love being able to communicate with him and I love that he is learning to communicate with me instead of just crying or whining. It is so fun watching him learn new things and to see his little mind put all the pieces together. His world is just growing and growing and I am loving every second of it.



I will post details, pics, and maybe video from his first birthday party later. He also has his 1 year doctor check-up next week and I will do my best to let everyone know how that all goes.