Holden Beach, 2008!

We just got back from what seems to be becoming our annual pilgrimage to Holden Beach. Caroline is now 14 months old and has been walking, by herself, shakily, for a couple of weeks now. She's really taken off in the past week though, able to cross rooms and go from room to room with ease.

At the beach she encountered stairs for the first time. There were several sets of them both inside and out. She didn't know how to approach them the first time, trying to crawl up with her hands and hoisting up a leg. After showing her how to step up once and holding her by the hand, she figured out how to bend the knee and lift up the foot. It was off the races then!

Her command of speech is improving every day and is almost hard to keep up with. Jus the other day, June 23rd, she began saying "Cra-craw" for a cookie or cracker. She also says "buh-buh" (bye bye) and "baw-baw" (ball.) Yesterday she tried to make the "Juh" sound to say "John" and "Chuh" to say "Champ" (our dog's name.)

Walking Walking

I found a way to make riding in the car quite tolerable. What I do is demand that my parents put on the "Baby Songs" DVD and I immediately go into a state of complete relaxation. I don't know why I love to watch that video over and over...but I do.

Lately I have been making a beeline from the backyard patio straight to my sandbox. Mom says I sure am determined and single minded.

My walking continues to improve every day as well. Right now I can walk over to Mom's purse, rummage around for something nice, then walk around the room with it. And its only getting better!

My first steps

I've been able to stand and take 1 or 2 tentative wobbly steps for about a month now. However, I've been reluctant to go any further because I keep falling down on my rear.

I think I'll note May 20th as the day I started taking several steps at a time. It's very liberating to be able to cross the distance between the couch and my firetruck without having to crawl.

I can go about 8 steps at a time now. Any day now I'll give up crawling altogether. After all, that's for babies!

Day 365! Happy Birthday to me!

My first birthday party was today! Everyone was there including my grandparents and friends and neighbors. We had fruit, sandwiches, drinks, and birthday cake. I got a lot of new toys including a fire truck and another walker. I got a book and a wooden puzzle. I got some pretty new outfits including a party dress. It was exhausting!

 

Today was a very busy one. We started off with the ritual jog/run to Starbucks followed by our semi-monthly big shopping visit to Wal-Mart. We got home by noon then Dad mowed the lawn. By 2 pm we were off to John's tennis match which was rained out by 3 pm. We all went to the Harris Y so I could try out my new flotation swim suit.

The suit was pretty nice, but I'm still a little too small for it. (I think I'm weighing in at around 22 el-bees these days and the suit is for 20 to 35 lb babies.)

 

We finished up around 4 pm and headed home for a short nap. Then I got up around 5 for a few more hours of craziness. Finally, I crashed out for good around 7:45 pm. Mom and Dad seem really tired today for some reason.

Day 358

 

 

I'm going to take over for Daddy since he's not doing a very good job of keeping this up-to-date.

We went on a short hike at Crowder's Mountain today. Daddy and Mommy took turns carrying me around in my new backpack carrier. Dad said it is a Kelty Tour model, whatever that means. We got it at Jesse Brown's Outdoors on Friday and they couldn't wait to throw me in it and get out of town.

16 more days til your first birthday!

What have you been up to lately? Let's see.

You can go from the floor to a standing position with almost no effort. You can stand up for 10 seconds or so, teetering back and forth. Today you took a sip of my smoothie while standing up.

You're saying "DaDa" and "MaMa" upon request. Although I'm not sure you're identifying us with those terms. You can also say "Baby" but you say it "Day-dee."

Here is a little video from this morning: