so many new things going on with OJ

Oscar has just been speeding to his own independence and fast tracking all of his daily learned milestones. It took him a long time to figure out crawling, but once he did, he realized he wanted nothing to do with it anymore and wants to start walking.

We've never let him see that we had stairs in the house so that he wouldn't go near them. He hadn't discovered them before this past week, even when he started crawling. We wanted to hide them from him because they were uncovered, uncarpeted, rickety, splintery wood stairs with pieces of jagged wood poking out on certain stairs. Our basement also had a nasty concrete floor as of last week, so we steered Oscar clear of the stairs and basement until now. We got some carpet on the stairs and basement and set Oscar free down there in his own personal carpeted toy heaven, vacant of all adult furniture and knick knacks.

The first thing the boy spotted was the stairs. He booked it towards them and just started climbing up the whole flight of stairs for the first time as if he'd done it a million times. Now his #1 priority in life is to climb those stairs over and over again. Here he is climbing like it's his full time job. Sorry it's so dark.


The other thing he started doing immediately after crawling, is pulling himself up onto his feet. He will see anything with a little height to it, a wall, a parent's leg, an ottoman, a toy, and he'll try to use it to pull himself up to a supported stand. Now he does it to the wall and gets stuck there, he doesn't know to just sit himself back down on the ground, he just crys for help.


Standing cousins.



Always standing on his toes. His favorite new buddy the pound puppy.


He also has started licking the wall to death when he does this. It's hilarious. I don't know why he does it. Watch the first few seconds of the video cause I caught him doing it for like 2 seconds.



He also just got his front facing carseat! I don't know if other parents have looked forward to this as much as I have, but I have been DYING to put him in one since he was 5 months old. He has been WAY to big, heavy, and long to be in his infant rear facing carseat for far too long. It's been hard lifting him and angling his long body into that tiny carseat. Not to mention, Oscar really has never liked being reclined. He LOVES to be upright. AND, we get to see him and he can see us while we're driving! We are all just sooo happy about this. You're not supposed to put them in these until they're 1, but he's one month away from his big birthday party! Neither Nate, nor I, can believe we have a child whose age we count and say in years and not months. This was his early birthday present from his great grandpa and namesake. We love you papa, thank you! Here's Oscar in all his front facing glory!



He couldn't stop looking out the window.




So happy!