Dancing (and Possibly Walking) Away

I apologize for his outfit here and in the dresser-clearing video--I know it's horribly ghetto (I think the British word is naff, which I find hilariously great) to have pictures and video of Jack in only a onesie, but he seems to lose his pants constantly (usually by stepping on them and then getting horribly frustrated and stuck), and frankly he never does his cutest things when it's convenient, so I'm lucky even to catch these moments.  Still, I feel slightly bad that he has such adorable clothes but is only ever pictured wearing T-shirt onesies.  

At any rate, Jack has been up to some exciting things this week.  Hopefully soon Ben will be over his latest rough patch at work (he had worked over 40 hours by Wednesday afternoon this week--by Tuesday night if you count Sunday in this week) and I'll be able to start writing on more than a weekly basis, but for now here's what Jack's been up to:

Babbling.  This is all very cute.  I love hearing him starting to say "mama" and "dada" even though he doesn't know what it means.  And I think it's very clever how he already has the cadence of conversation down.  

I did not, however, particularly appreciate it on Sunday in church when 1) Jack was talking away, 2) everyone was staring (including the lady behind me who couldn't understand why I refused her offer to give Jack a candy bar), 3) Ben was working and suddenly couldn't make it to the early mass that we went to (although I didn't get his message saying this before church and therefore was watching for him to come in until the very end), and 4) (the most devastating) I looked in the diaper bag and realized I didn't have any binkies with me.  A little overwhelming.  But it's especially adorable when Jack does a barbaric yawp with his whole body--he pulls himself up from the hips until he's about 2

 inches taller than normal, at the same time squawking and grinning fervently.  He's in mid-yawp in the first picture and just finished in the one below.  Also note 

his adorable new big boy sneakers.  I got Ben and Jack a matching set for Christmas.  They're still a little big but the others are now a little small.

Putting things inside other things and starting to use stacking toys.  "Things" sounds vague, but I really can't get more specific than that, because everything is going on or in something else.  The thermometer goes back in its case.  Tupperware lids and other random safe kitchen tools that I rarely use go back in Jack's drawer in the kitchen.  The Ella's Kitchen screw top goes back on the lid to the packet--usually before Jack's done eating it.  I am very appreciative of this development, although it does need a little refining before it will actually be helpful to me.  Apparently Jack is convinced that the magnet that opens the childproof cabinet locks belongs inside the washing machine.  Just have to keep an eye out for that one so that the magnet isn't stuck inside the running washer when I need to clean up.  The stacking rings that Nonna and Pops got Jack for Christmas are starting to see more use; Jack can now play with them for more than the three seconds it takes him to take all the rings off.

Continuing to take things out. 

 And apparently the contents of our second desk drawer belong on the floor.  All of the contents of the desk drawer.  All day long.  Folded laundry is meant to be piled on the floor, much like I used to think piles of raked leaves needed to be jumped in.

Playing jingle, jingle, jingle.  This is the game wherein Jack goes to the door in either my arms or his daddy's and tries to pull the keys out of the keyhole.  We have a skeleton keyhole, which adds a little challenge to what would normally be a very mundane effort.  This is usually closely followed by the beep-boop-beep-boop-beep game--when Jack tries to operate the telephone in our entryway that opens the downstairs door for delivery people.  And that is almost always followed by the "Who's coming?" game--when Jack attempts to look through the peephole.  

The last game has been stalled a little because someone on the managing board of our building decided it would be a good idea to install motion sensor lighting in our hallway.  I wouldn't complain too much about it except that 1) our hallways are eerily dark even in the middle of the afternoon, 2) the lights are about 1/3 as bright as the inadequate lights that were previously in there, and 3) the lights (like all British lights it seems) take about 4 seconds to turn on, which doesn't sound like much but feels like an eternity since that's about the same amount of time it takes me to walk to the end of the hallway.  And this is the future we as Americans face since Congress has bizarrely decided to outlaw incandescent bulbs in favor of buzzing, flickering, harsh glow compact  florescent bulbs.  Despite a growing environmentalist streak in me, I'm still firmly against bad lighting.

Um, yeah, so Jack...

Dancing.  This is probably my favorite development.  In an effort to help him learn balance (since he wasn't standing on his own very much), I started standing Jack up in front of me while I kneel down and vigorously moving his arms along to the beat of songs.  He gets a little off balance but manages to stay up.  Since I've started doing this, any time Jack hears music he starts bopping his head and shaking his body.  Still a little early to tell whether or not he has rhythm (I hope), but really funny. 

Standing.  Until last weekend Jack had been very reluctant to stand.  It's not that he couldn't, he just didn't seem to have any reason to.  He can hold onto any object he wants with one hand while cruising around the couch with the other.  And if he wants to go somewhere furniture won't take him, he had his walker to use.  His walker use is really cute--he uses it like an old person would use a walker to go from place to place, but when he sees something interesting in 

the room (a floor lamp or the open dryer, for example) he makes a detour.  But on Sunday he decided to try it out.  He was moving the childproof lock magnet from the metal bar on the cabinet door to the washing machine and back again, when he decided to stand back and admire his work.  When he realized that standing back and admiring his work got me to admire his work, he did more of it.  So for about 15 minutes he repeated the process: stick, stand, get praised, move to the other side.

Walking?  When Ben got home on Sunday, I had Jack show off his newly appreciated standing skills, and as he was doing it, I think he may have taken his first step.  It was stumbling, but he put one foot in front of the other and Ben and I looked at each other and said at the same time, "Did he just...?"  So I think he did.  He's done a few repeats since then, but only in the process of falling, which I suppose doesn't really count.  But for the record I think it's as close to a first step as we're going to get; if his slow but sudden leap into the world of the crawling is any indication, this baby's milestones may be a bit hard to date.