Toddle

Much to the dismay of our cat (who is a frequent object of pursuit), Nathaniel is on the verge of full mobility. It's been a gradual process - the first stumbling, unintentional step without support probably happened a month or so ago, and crawling is still his preferred method of travel. But even over the past couple of weeks, walking has become more frequent and has covered greater distances. And now, since I've taken a picture of it, I'm calling it official and sharing it with you. And of course this means lessons in dribbling a basketball (from me) and swinging a golf club (from GrandTeddy) should begin very soon.

Theme Park fun

As promised, here's the second installment of our PA trip. One fun outing was to a local theme park (which Kelli frequented growing up) which includes, among other things, and area called "Storybook Forest". As you'll see in the pictures, it's basically large nursery rhyme scenes. Nathaniel may not have his nursey rhymes memorized yet, but he could tell this was a less much more interesting place to walk around than most grown-up places.

As we carried Nathaniel through this area, he frequently "asked" to be transferred from person to person, by leaning and reaaching in the direction of his newly-preferred carrier. When we got to Little Red Riding Hood, Nathaniel decided he'd like to go see her, and we obliged. Below you see him realizing that the person holding him is definitely NOT someone he knows. At least she wasn't the Big Bad Wolf.

Time for a short lunch break (the boy LOVES bananas).

Then we were able to work in a ride on a merry-go-round and a train before Nathaniel's need for sleep outweighed his enjoyment of the entertainment. On the way out of the park we also discovered that Nathaniel is a BIG fan of a slushee, flavored blue #6. He only got a few spoonfuls, but probably would have been glad to finish off the whole thing.

Summer fun doesn't necessarily mean leaving home, though. Witness Frog-Pool. Again, Nathaniel enjoyed it, and the adults enjoyed watching him even more.

The sprinkler feature was a little startling at first...

But once he got the hang of it (and we turned down the water pressure a little), he thought it was a lot of fun.

So as you can see, we had a lot of fun and quality family time in a short period. We're already looking forward to next year's trip.

4th of July

We took advantage of the long weekend (and made it a little longer) by taking a trip to Pennsylvania to visit with the Dominick side of the family. The New River Gorge in West Virginia is on the way, and thanks to a borrowed baby backpack, we got to stop for a short hike. Nathaniel seemed to be satisfied with the performance of his mule, and Kelli and I really enjoyed a good walk in the woods, plus a spectacular view of the gorge.

On the 4th of July itself, we had lots of family time, food from the grill, and of course some ice cream. In one of the pictures you'll see Nathaniel negotiating for a bite or two of Uncle Dale's large serving of ice cream and cake.

Stay tuned for an entry from days 3 and 4 - Nathaniel's Dominick grandparents are great hosts, so this entry can't contain a sufficient record of all the fun.

This past weekend, Nathaniel got to hang out with friend Anja while Anja's parents had a garage sale. The idea was for Kelli to supervise the children during the garage sale, but apparently Anja (who can walk and not satisfied to stay in one spot) was more interested in supervising the garage sale than being supervised.

Nathaniel will certainly follow Anja's example of getting into even more stuff than he does now once he can walk. For now, he continues to progress towards full bipedal locomotion, but still relies on crawling to get from point A to point B. He has taken as many as 3 steps unsupported, but those were really more of a stumble than a walk. He does well working his way along walls and the edges of furniture, and now occasionally stands up unsupported for a few seconds at a time. We'll post some pictures of walking once it happens.

Another developing skill: talking. Nathaniel has had some favorite syllables for some time. Sometimes we think he associates them with a particular concept, sometimes not. "Uh-oh" used to have no meaning whatsoever, but now seems to be connected to throwing things onto the floor, at least sometimes. "Ma-ma" is another one he's used for a while, and the rough translation at this point seems to be "Mother, please hand me that piece of food".