Little Ruckus is 36 weeks old now! In real-life terms, that is eight and a half months which has me thinking about his first birthday party, among other things. In my head I want to celebrate this in a big way, but in reality I must acknowledge some important things: a) he is going to be one year old and will neither comprehend nor appreciate nor remember most of what goes on at a typical birthday party; and b) he has no friends. This sort of disappoints me and makes me want to get him involved with other babies as soon as possible, so there is at least one baby friend in attendance. I don't think I'm going to actually do this, but it sounds nice on paper.
I have joined two mommy groups for potential playdates and have not found anything that will work just yet, as the most appealing ones take place during the week when I am at work. In addition to scheduling issues, many of the activities are simply not suitable for a baby as young as Ruckus. But I have confidence that eventually we will find one and Ruckus will finally get to meet a baby his age which will hopefully be fun for him.
The past eight months have been full of 'firsts', for the baby, and for us as parents. Some of them are major firsts and some of them sneak up on you because it doesn't occur to you that the baby has never seen or done something until that moment comes and he has a surprising reaction to whatever it is.
This past weekend Dad and baby and I went to visit one of our neighbors for a little while, because we hadn't been to their house in ages and needed to get a little fresh air. So we put Ruckus in his stroller and walked up the small hill that goes to their house. We went in and Ruckus immediately became fascinated with their cats. I think they have about six of them, and their house is set up so that the cats have an aerial catwalk complete with a tunnel through a wall between the kitchen and living room so that they can go from room to room without having to use the floor. Until this moment, Ruckus had never seen a cat and it was very funny to see his eyes get wide as saucers and his jaw drop as he stared in fascination at these new creatures scattered throughout the room.
Also this past weekend we took Ruckus on a hike at one of the local parks and he behaved marvelously in spite of the heat and wind, and being confined to his stroller for about an hour. Short outings like this are important for us right now, as we tend to coop ourselves up to just 'get through the day' and this is not the best thing to do all the time. A change of scenery does one a lot of good, and the baby seems to enjoy being out and about as well.
The most exciting part of this weekend is that Ruckus finally crawled forward, for the first time ever! He has been scooting around backward and rolling around all over the place for a long while but he is now actually crawling and it has brought about a few new challenges. He can now actively choose a direction and get to his goal in record speed, so we are having to follow him around a lot more to keep him safe and out of trouble.
His favorite destination right now seems to be his uncle's room. He starts out playing with a toy in the middle of the living room floor, then will lie down and take a couple of rolls toward the hall. Then, he is up on all fours and on the move, very determined. If you 'chase' him he will giggle and pick up speed, like he is trying to get away. It is very cute!
Ruckus has figured out that if he kicks his baby gate enough times in the same spot it will fall down, allowing him access to the very enticing kitchen. Luckily there are not many hazardous things within his reach, and he is not left alone to explore the few things that might prove dangerous.
We have made a lot of progress with baby proofing the main areas of the house by blocking off the obvious hazards like cords and things that could be pulled down on top of the baby, which has saved us from a lot of chasing the baby around. In spite of only having a few days of experience in crawling he is now starting to try to pull himself up to a standing position, and has chosen a few things which are not particularly stable or heavy, like his bouncer and his toy box, so we will have to get creative and anchor things down somehow. I am confident that as soon as we do this he will start running and all bets will be off, again.
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