…30th of April 2014 I have ever experienced.
Chilkoot walks now. The video is from the 21st, and it’s the longest walk he has taken. From first crawl to first stand took one day; a month after that he was walking under his own power with a parents’ hand for balance. Four days later, he was walking with no human assistance, just leaning on a walker. Six days later, he walked entirely unassisted. In 54 days, he went from not even crawling, to walking unassisted. This seems really fast for some reason.
He went through a period where he happily launched himself in various directions, and laughed when his face collided with such paltry obstacles as the floor, although this cavalier attitude toward collisions has declined somewhat. We had Chilkoot’s 9 month appointment. He’s in the 75th percentile for height and weight (22lb 12oz, 28 3/4″ although he shrunk 1/2″ when measured again five minutes later, 18 1/4″ head circumference). Chilkoot’s eye has been acting up again, so we’ve been torturing him with eyedrop antibiotics again. He has four teeth now, and the fifth is no more than a couple days from breaking through the gum.
We took Chilkat to a series of four gymnastics lessons. These were fun. She got to run and jump and flip around and play, and pretend the other kids were not there, and studiously ignore the teacher. She called it ‘nastics. For some reason, she drops that first J sound, just like with ‘pan (Japan).
KrisDi recently asked Chilkat if she wanted to brew beer. She thought the idea was hilarious, because she doesn’t like beer. She’s starting to show signs of math skills: She knows she’s allowed to have three buddies with her for bed. She had two, one of which she wanted to keep, and one she wanted to get rid of, so she could get the two she wanted. She was able to clearly describe, “Let’s take this one down stairs, so I can get two other ones.
Correction: Apparently KrisDi is bad at telling stories or I’m bad at listening. Or both. But, to correct: Chilkat was getting ready to go to school in the morning. She’s allowed to take three buddies in the car with her. Of the three buddies she had in her bed, only one was deemed worthy of the trip to school. So, she knew she could take that one, leave the other two, and select two different ones as travelling companions.
Her ability to reason and argue has also improved. For instance, she wanted to eat fruit in the car (juicy, messy fruit). KrisDi said, “No, you’ll make a mess.”
“But it’s in a bowl!”
“Yeah, but it’ll still drip.”
“But you can give me a napkin!”
There was a similar argument about bed time. She wanted KrisDi to take her to bed.
“No honey, I have to take Chilkoot to bed.”
“You can take him to my bed!”
“No, honey, I think that’ll be too much of a distraction.”
“You can just put your legs up like this and nurse him! You did it while Daddy was in Japan!”