A very big day!!

Well, I think it's safe to say that December 12th is the day Oliver started walking!!! He had done a few steps in a row when Steve and Al were here, but it didn't keep his interest for long. Then when we visited Alison Snow and her 2 boys on the 11th, he walked about 6 steps in a row, several times. Then yesterday, we went to this big children's play place, where there was a huge gym mat and lots of things to play with and a big room filled with balls to roll around in. I think Oliver got brave because he knew if he fell down it wouldn't hurt, and he just started taking off! First it was from one thing to another, maybe 6 steps or so, and by the end of the 2.5 hours, he was walking long stretches, maybe 20 steps in a row!

When we got home, he walked from one end of our kitchen counters to the other, and from our bathroom halfway into the bedroom. This morning he walked in a circle, very advanced!! He's very, very cute walking, as you can imagine. Poor dad is in Germany right now, he'll be back tomorrow - but it's ok because he really did see Oliver's first steps, he just hasn't seen the more advanced techniques yet. He'll be very impressed!

Our little lamb

So, Oliver is turning into a sheep, I think - he had a very sheep-like poo this morning! Aren't you glad to know that??! But the big news today is his marathon night of sleep... he didn't have an afternoon nap yesterday, and seemed pretty tired when we put him to bed. He fell asleep at 7:30, then woke up to join us in bed around 2:30am, and slept till 8am! 12.5 hours of sleep! He actually woke up around 6:30, but we played around in bed and he decided to fall asleep again. Nice!

I've just been on the Sparta Public Library website, where they have a nice storytime program for babies and kids, but there's a waitlist for the baby group, and I have to cross my fingers that I'll be able to register fast enough for the winter session. Registration is on January 7th starting at 8:30am... man, it's cut-throat around here!

Anyway, time to heat up some of Uncle Steven's pea and ham soup for Oliver's lunch. Yum! PS, just adding this a half hour later or so -- I scooped a lot of soup out for O, thinking we had extra and he'd never eat that much, but he's just gobbled it all up!

Say "bye-bye"

Man, we had to say good bye to Steve and Alison today, after a one week visit, and it was really hard! They had so much fun with O, but more importantly, he had so much fun with them! Constant playmates, none of this "mom doing a million things while I'm close by" stuff, just lots and lots of attention and fun. We had such a great week, and Oliver is even closer to walking now - he has made about three steps in a row now.

I couldn't make it halfway through "The Wheels on the Bus" song without crying after we dropped them off at the train station today, though we did try some of the English-style verses, like "the mothers on the bus say natter natter natter" - pronouncing the "t"s and all! I forget what the mothers say in the American version, but it isn't natter... but we'll say that when we sing it. Then I smiled when Oliver kept pressing "three, three three" on his toy phone, which he always did when Steve was with him.

Anyway, we'll look forward to our next visit, which can't come soon enough... and now it's 3:19pm, I'm taking O upstairs for a nap, and Steve and Al should be just setting off on their flight... safe journey!