Oliver: 13 Months

Well, he officially hit the 14-month mark two days ago, and he took his first steps today!! We've been in Nice (on the French Riviera) this week with some friends of ours (more on that to come later, I promise) who have a little girl who is just 9 days older than Oliver. She, though, has been walking for some time. I thought (ok, I admit, hoped!) that Oliver might take after Karis and begin walking while we were on this trip. Alas, he waited until after Karis and her parents flew back to Cambridge this morning to give it a try. But he did it! Just a few steps down the hallway, but we are expecting more when he gets up from his nap. The mental block (being able to stand on his own, walk really well while holding one hand, drive his little car around, and generally be able to do all the skills required to walk except taking the actual steps) seems to have passed. We're thrilled!

Anyway, some pictures from this past month... This month can best be summed up by one word: parks. We took an all-day trip to a park in the suburbs for a sports day with other churches:

And Oliver and I spent almost every day at the park. Sometimes he stacked his buckets:

Usually he wandered off like this...

And sometimes he practiced his standing skills (and, for the record, I was very unhappy about the creepy pigeon that kept coming so close to my child... rats with wings, I tell you!):

We also graduated to the actual playground area at Champs de Mars. He's not technically old enough, and he's usually the only kid crawling rather than walking, but he has a blast just watching everyone (I circled him so you could find him better... sorry for the poor iphone-quality of most of these pics!):

TWICE while at this park, Oliver started fights. He wasn't actually a part of these fights; he just was so popular that EVERYONE wanted to play with him. I kid you not. These little girls played with him for in the sand for about half an hour...

After that, they moved to the carriage and took turns patting Oliver on the head.

Then another little girl had the gall to try to play with Oliver, too, and an actual fight ensued. One girl shoved another, and that girl hit back. Me, totally amused by the popularity of my son, actually started filming. Does that make me a bad person? I'll spare you the video, but suffice it to say that we will be watching that this little one doesn't get too big a head... Oh wait... well, at least that he doesn't get a big head metaphorically.

When it rained (which, unfortunately, was pretty often this month), we did all we could to stay entertained in the house. Here's his look of satisfaction as he stands up all by himself:

And his new soccer ball was a source of much fun:

Even more time-consuming was the intense desire to empty drawers. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I often let him do it on rainy days because he was so bored in the house otherwise! One day, I found him in my room; he had emptied my pajama drawer, managed to "dress himself" in a pair of my shorts, and had moved on to emptying the bedside table...

We also moved him permanently to the bathtub as he has pretty much outgrown the sink, and he loves it!

The lighting in my bathroom is great, too, as there is a frosted window that fills the wall behind the tub. You can see my reflection in his eyes!

He loves to set all his little bath toys along the edge of the tub:

But most of all, he LOVES to splash. He really gets into it!

Each month gets more fun... I mean it. It's more running around, more work to entertain him, more food to keep him full, and more loads of laundry, but it's WAY more fun. Wouldn't trade it for the world. :)