Out for a stroll

Kaylani's been on a roll lately. In the past month she's learned to pull herself up to a standing position, crawl on all fours, and eat new and exciting people food. Lately though, she's been on a real roll, in the form of her activity walking that she got from Mayte, Alan, Nolan, and Kayleb. At first we thought it was just an accident waiting to happen, but now it looks like she finally got the hang of it.

The Vtech Sit to Stand Activity Walker is the perfect height for her to pop herself up and get moving. It's still a little dangerous at times (hence the accident waiting to happen part) since it'll roll forward when she tries to stand up if we don't have the break on, but once she's up, she's up. A few weeks ago, she would first fall over or pull the toy over on top of herself while trying to stand up, but now she's fine with that part. The next step (get it?) was to take a few steps by herself, and she would topple over doing that too. The problem was she would lean forward, which of course caused the toy to roll out in front of her, and she would fall forward since she didn't move her feet.

Now though, she pushes it and walks along with it. Sometimes she'll push it a little further and have to catch up to it while looking like she's going to crash, but for the most part, she's good to go. The only problem is she can only go straight. And once she gets to the end, that's the end. Oh well, walking is step 1, turning is step 2, and I'm pretty sure driving a car is step 3.

Anyways, check out this video of Kaylani's 2nd day of walking without Mommy or Daddy holding her by the side. As an added bonus, Kaylani threw in a few extra tricks of hers at the end, like saying bye and giving a kiss. Enjoy!

Standing Room Only

It finally happened. We knew this moment was coming and thankfully we were prepared. Nothing bad happened, unless you count an hour of lost sleep as bad. Wait, that IS bad! Well, nothing REALLY bad happened.

Around 5:30am, Kaylani started crying. Its not unusual for that to happen so we kinda thought nothing of it. Sometimes, if we're lucky, she'll cry for a few minutes then fall back alseep. After a few minutes, it was pretty clear that she wasn't going to go back down easily. We had no idea how true that statement was.

Mommy looked at the video monitor first. She blinked a few times, then scrambled to get up. "She's standing in the crib! She's standing" she yelled as she tried to put on her robe. I looked up briefly and didn't see Kaylani standing. Looked like a normal crib to me. But then I put on my glasses, and yep, wouldn't you know it, Kaylani was at the front of her crib, standing. From the looks of it, she used the bumpers to pull herself up. Luckily we just put in mesh bumpers that don't provide much support or leverage, but apparently it was enough to get her standing.

So after taking a look at her standing in her crib for the very first time, I went in. Foolishly I tried to lay her down and see if she'd fall asleep (she didn't). That meant morning was here. 20 minutes before my alarm went off, or an hour before I had planned on getting up. Whoever said Standing Room only tickets are cheaper is wrong because it sure looks like standing in her room is gonna cost us.

Ups and Downs

There are lots of ups and downs in life. If you live life long enough, you're bound to experience your fair share of ups and downs. Luckily for Kaylani she's only experienced ups in her life so far. Unfortunately for her, she's gotta get her fair share of downs too. Right now, I think she'd welcome a lesson in downs.

Kaylani, the crawling monster, has turned into Kaylani, the climbing monster. The problem is that Kaylani doesn't know how to get down, and I'm not talking about 70's style dancing (although she probably doesn't know how to "get down" like that either). So far, she hasn't run into anything that she hasn't tried to climb. Our bed, her dresser, my hamper, the couch, her pack and play, a kitchen counter, a wall that we sprayed grease on, anything. You name it, she's tried to climb it. Most of the time she's successful too (except for that wall we sprayed grease on). But that's not the hard part.

The hard part is learning how to fall gracefully, or "falling like a lady" as Mommy puts it. I'm not sure what "falling like a lady" is, but it doesn't really matter because Kaylani only knows how to fall one way...hard. The problem is that Kaylani doesn't fall backwards onto her butt. That would be okay since she has a nice cushy diaper on. Instead, Kaylani chooses to fall sideways, which means that when she falls, it's gonna hurt.

There are 2 schools of thought to this. The first is to let her fall sideways and bump herself, as long as it's not against a wall, or a corner, or anything hard or sharp. Of course there's a chance she gets hurt, but there's also a chance that she learns that it hurts and stops falling sideways. The other thought is to catch her every time she falls so that she actually doesn't fall. This way she never gets hurt (or is less likely to get hurt), but she may never learn how to fall gracefully (or "like a lady").

If you haven't guessed, Daddy is much more likely to let her fall on her own while Mommy is pretty adamant on catching her every time. I'm not sure which one is better, but I do know that Kaylani better learn to get down on her own pretty soon. It sure would make our lives less stressful, and possibly less painful. And as soon as she can get up and down on her own, then we'll celebrate and we'll all "get down."

And if you're down with all of that, then click on over to Sports IllustraDad at Dad-Blogs and read my latest column on how kids could change the way you watch baseball games at the stadium. I'm not sure what we'll do in the future, but it's sure worth a thought now!

Out of the army

All that army training has finally paid off. After weeks of army crawling around the place, Kaylani finally realized that she can pop herself up on her forearms and knees and move just a little bit better. To be fair, she was pretty darn quick with the army crawl (and still is), but I'm thinking she's going to be a lot quicker now.

She actually still does the army crawl most of the time now. But every now and then she'll pop herself up and take a few awkward crawls from her knees. She hasn't quite figured out that she can just move one knee and the opposite arm, and then repeat that. Instead, she's decided that she'll still do the one leg push, just from her knees. So now her crawling looks more like a normal crawl with a straight leg limp. HI-larious!

The good thing about Kaylani mastering the art of crawling (whether it be army crawling or normal crawling with a straight leg limp) is that she is developing nicely and on pace (as far as I know). The problem with this is that she's getting herself into all types of trouble. Sure she's always been able to grab at an electrical socket (which has been covered up), and sure she could always make her way over to the humidifier and try and pull it over. She could even get herself to a drawer or a door and open it into herself. But now she does it so much faster, and that's not even the scary part yet.

Tonight while she was exploring the house, she made her way past the coffee table, into the hallway, to the doormat, even to the A/C vent on the floor, before she finally found what she was looking for...the stairs. Now, the top of our stairs has been gated off for over a year already (and not because we thought Kaylani would fall down the stairs while she was still in the womb, but more that we thought her cousins would). The bottom of our stairs is currently open access, not that Kaylani would have cared if it was or not anyways.

I finally realized why babies like playing on stairs. Stairs are the perfect height to use to stand up. She can reach the first stair and still be in crawling like position. Then she can even scoot a little closer and reach the second stair to stand up. Once she's standing up, and leaning over the first stair, that's when she gets stuck. Today, she plopped back down on her little butt, but soon enough she'll be putting one leg up on that first stair, and bam, we've got ourselves a climber.

So now we can add the bottom of the stairs to the list of things to babyproof in the house. I think we'll move it to the top of the list too, right in front of the entertainment stand with glass, the bar with exposed wine bottles, and the door stopper without the rubber padding. I'm sure there are a few other things, but those are the ones at the top right now. Ahh the joys of a mobile baby. Seriously though, wouldn't trade it for anything in the world! Well, maybe a mobile baby who stayed out of trouble.

Out-standing!

I've always said that I would stand up for my little girl through out all aspects of her life. Little did I know that she'd do the same for me so soon. As of yesterday, Kaylani is officially standing! Okay so it's not entirely on her own, but she is standing on her own two feet while holding onto something. Whether she grabs the couch, a table, or her Leapfrog Learning Table, she's standing all by herself...much to Mommy's dismay.

You remember when we were teaching Kaylani how to sit? Every time we'd put her on her butt, Mommy would hover over her and catch her at the slightest wobble. Not surprisingly, Mommy is the same way when it comes to teaching Kaylani how to stand, except maybe even a bit worse. Daddy's pretty confident that Kaylani can hold her balance for at least a solid 30 seconds to a minute without any assistance, but when we practice around Mommy, I'm not sure she can stand it for that long.

You see, Mommy has just a tiny bit of an anxiety problem when it comes to things like this. She feels like Kaylani could fall over and hurt herself. Now, she's right about that because it is a possibility, but that's why Daddy is never a more than a foot away from Kaylani while she's standing. Usually, he's even right next to her (or behind her) with his ninja-like reflexes at the ready to catch her should she come crashing down to the side or backwards. Apparently Daddy's ninja-like reflexes don't mean a thing to Mommy.

We'll keep working on Kaylani standing until she's a pro. One of these days, she's going to be standing all by herself in the middle of the room, and we're just going to stand back and watch her. When that day comes, Mommy might be standing back and watching with a brown paper bag in her hands to help her breathe, but it's going to happen. Soon enough Kaylani will be pulling herself up from a sitting to a standing position, and that's when it all begins. She's pretty close to doing so already, but falls over immediately, so we still have a little time. Better get ready Mommy because our little girl is all growed up!

To prove it to you, check out these pictures from the last week or so. We've started to miss a few days of pictures, but here are some from Boston, Cape Cod, and even of Abuela who is in town for a week! The last ones have her standing all by herself! Not pictured: Mommy freaking out behind the camera.