Cookies and Crayons

Today is Connie’s last day as a baby. Tomorrow, she toddles her way into her second year.

Connie spent the day taking a few last minutes calls from her public.

Should we be concerned that she is trying to text this early?

Connie just discovered these chairs today and insists on climbing on them.

It’s strange, I can’t believe it’s been a year already and yet at the same time, it seems like Connie has been with us forever. We all excited to see what the next year will hold.

About a week ago, Connie took her first steps. Every day, she takes a few more. We finally managed to get them on video.

More back-posts coming soon but we wanted to share this one now.

Connie has learned to pull up on the tables.

It’s great for her, but Dougie isn’t able to hide things from her up there any more. He’s tried to pull her down a few times but we don’t let that happen – so he needed a different plan.

After Connie pulls up on the table, he gets Connie’s attention….

and he starts clapping. Connie soon follows suit.

The more excited she gets, the more she claps, and then this happens.

This method isn’t likely to be effective for long, but it’s a pretty brilliant plan!

The kids were playing and I was getting dinner ready, suddenly, I noticed it was really quiet – too quiet. I went to investigate and found this:

ACK! What are you doing? No standing up!! That only leads to… walking!

Don’t look at me like that, I know you’re trying to walk.

I can tell you’re planning something

No no, climbing is totally unacceptable!

Good thing you’re cute

While we were in Vancouver, Connie started to really move herself. She had been able to go very short distances (< 2 feet) prior to our trip but she suddenly realized that this crawling thing could be a good way to get around.

She has a pretty good body position

But actually crawls in this position:

Notice her far arm is flat on the floor, that arm is used to pull her along the floor (it stays in that position). The other arm does some pulling as well. One foot is used to push her along. The other foot is for stability only. Despite the less than conventional method, she is quite fast and can easy go across and entire room.

As you would expect, Connie is thrilled with her new abilities. Dougie, on the other hand, is not as thrilled. Suddenly, all his toys are “up for grabs.” He’s started putting them on tables, I don’t have the heart to tell him that won’t work for long either.

Connie has a dream.

It consists of a world where she doesn’t need to roll to get somewhere – she can just pull herself forward.

She can manage to get an inch or two, so she isn’t really there yet, but she sure tries.

We don’t think crawling is too far away now.

Scott said, rolling over didn’t really count until you could do a full revolution.

Well, our Connie can roll.

Ready?

Here we go!

This is her new method for moving around the room. She starts on her playmat and, assuming she doesn’t get stuck on one of the posts, she just rolls from one side of the room to the other.

Even Dougie can’t stop her.